Texas Miracle

CHAPTER THREE

“SO, TELL US about your new assistant, Mac.” Cullen forked a bite of the sixteen-ounce T-bone the server had set down in front of him moments before. It was Thursday night, and the Brotherhood, as the four Temples affectionately called themselves, was in session for its monthly meeting at the Wild Horse Saloon. Even Hunt, who was a five-star chef, admitted the honky-tonk joint’s steaks were hard to beat.

“She’s nice. Smart.” Mac adjusted his glasses. “Very good with numbers.” He was suddenly very interested in studying the intricacies of his loaded baked potato.

“I think what Mac is trying to say is that she’s smoking hot!” Hunt clapped Mac on the back, rattling the table.

“Really?” Joiner piped up. “Jacqueline Aimes? The bookworm? Are we talking about the same girl I knew in high school?”

Mac took a deep breath. “That’s the one. But as Hunt has so eloquently stated, she’s not exactly the same girl we all remember.” He blushed in spite of his best efforts to appear cool.

The brothers hooted and hollered as if they were back in high school themselves. Or maybe junior high.

Mac shook his head. “You guys are so mature.”

“Spill the beans!” Joiner insisted. “I’ve been meaning to pop by and say hello ever since you told me you hired her.”

“When you go, don’t forget you’re a married man,” Hunt cautioned. “I’m just sayin’.”

“Like anyone could turn Joiner’s head away from Stella!” Cullen laughed.

Hunt turned to his twin, rolling his eyes. “Like I think anyone else holds a candle to Gillian.”

“Sarah does.” Cullen smiled at the thought of his wife.

Mac sighed. “Will you guys shut up? You all have gorgeous wives. And I have a gorgeous assistant, which is a totally unrelated matter.”

“Unrelated for the meantime, maybe.” Joiner ribbed his older brother. “Seriously, though, tell us about her.”

“She’s had an interesting life since she left Kilgore. She went to college in Arkansas.”

“Arkansas?” The three brothers groaned in unison.

“Yeah,” Mac said. “But she’s not a Razorback. She won a great scholarship to one of the smaller state schools. Sounds like she had an amazing experience. She was really involved in their honors program.”

“That sounds like her,” Joiner said. “That girl is a brainiac.”

Mac nodded. “She had a chance to study abroad while she was there and then hooked up with KARIS, a group that helps children around the globe.”

Cullen whistled. “Impressive.”

“Yes, I think it was, or is.”

“What do you mean, is?” Hunt asked.

“Well, she worked her way up to a pretty high-profile position. Was the director of communications for the Middle East. She was working out of their office in Afghanistan until just recently, when they had to evacuate.” Mac took a sip of iced tea. “She’s still working for them online a bit, but I guess time will tell whether she’ll go back full-time.” He didn’t dare add that he hoped time would answer “no” to that option.

Joiner asked, “How’d she end up coming here?”

“She’s trying to sell her parents’ property for them, that acreage where they lived. Apparently, they are in some kind of financial difficulty.”

“That land is nothing special, if I remember it right,” Joiner said. “Too bad there’s not oil underneath it or something. That’s about the only way I can see anybody would want to buy it. Course then, they wouldn’t want to sell it, would they?”

* * *

THE NEXT MORNING when Mac arrived at the office, Jacqueline was already waiting for him in the parking lot. She got out of her car when she saw him, and they walked to the front door together, her gray suede high heels clacking on the pavement. Ever since the day he told her it was okay to wear jeans, it seemed she’d gone completely the other direction in her attire, and today was no exception. Embroidered black flowers traced their way from her shoulders to the front of her diaphanous gray dotted nylon mesh dress, layered over a black slip. The dress tapered at the waist before flowing into a raw-edged, trumpet-shaped, high-low hem. A short black jacket and fog-gray tights kept her warm, he assumed.

“I like your dress.”

Jacqueline smiled. “Thanks. It’s one of my favorites. I brought my old wardrobe with me when I moved here.” She tugged at the bottom of her jacket. “It’s kind of nice rediscovering all the things I had no use for in Afghanistan.”

It’s kind of nice for me, too. He enjoyed seeing her expressions of personal style each day, even looked forward to it. He’d never admit it, but in this, as well as a myriad of other ways, he was finding it harder and harder to keep his feelings toward her strictly professional.

Jacqueline stirred something in him that had long been buried. Her combination of smarts, compassion and exotic beauty were irresistible. It scared him and thrilled him at the same time. Maybe he should ask her out for dinner sometime, he mused. He’d not been on a date in ages, and she was so alluring. Mac would like to get to know her better outside of a work setting. But maybe he shouldn’t. He didn’t want to risk a good working relationship. And maybe there was more at stake than that. He didn’t know if he was ready to risk his heart.

“I guess I may need to get you your own key to the kingdom,” Mac joked, bringing himself back to the moment.

She smiled. “I’m a little early.”

As he held the door for her, he said, “Ella spoiled me. She was always early, had the coffee on by the time I got here.”

“You really miss her, don’t you?” Jacqueline strode directly to the coffeemaker and began their morning ritual.

“I do miss her. She’s my friend.” Mac paused at the front desk. “But you’re doing great. I’m really glad you’re here.” He thought he noticed the color heighten in her cheeks.

“I’m glad you’re letting me do more around here than I was at first. I need to do more than make coffee and answer the phone, for what you’re paying me.”

“Well, I’m not used to my assistant understanding the tax code as well as I do, but it’s a nice change. I could get used to it.”

Jacqueline snorted. “I’ve got a long way to go to understand it as well as you. But I’m glad I can help a little.”

Mac rapped his hands on the desk, unsure of what else to say.

She smiled at him. “I’ll bring your coffee in a minute.”

“Okay.”

They worked methodically through the hours. Jacqueline suggested a system by which she viewed the tax packets people brought in first, cleaned them up and arranged them for Mac according to difficulty. He found that she filtered a lot of things he usually had to do himself. The work went smoothly and by the end of the day they’d accomplished a lot together—more than Mac thought possible. He felt oddly relieved of some of the pressure and responsibility he always felt.

“Jacqueline?” He buzzed her desk phone at quitting time.

“Yes?”

“Can I buy you dinner?”

She hesitated. “I can buy my own. I’m well paid.”

“I’d like to treat you,” Mac said. “I mean, unless you have other plans. You’ve been a tremendous help to me today.”

“Well, I don’t have other plans...”

He could almost hear the wheels turning in her brain and he wondered what she was thinking. He hoped he wasn’t crossing an invisible employer-employee line. As Ella had been more his mother’s age, this was new territory for him. “No pressure, of course.”

“I’d love to.”

“Do you need to go home first, or want to go from here?”

“We can go from here. That’s fine.”

After they closed down the office and Mac locked the door behind them, they walked together to his truck. He held the passenger door for her as she climbed up, no small feat in her high heels. Then he settled into the driver’s seat.

“What do you like to eat? I’m afraid we don’t have the greatest selection in Kilgore.”

Jacqueline smiled. “What I’m really in the mood for is Indian food. I don’t suppose a great Indian joint popped up since I left?”

“Actually...”

“No way! In Kilgore?”

Mac laughed. “Not in Kilgore. But I’ve heard about one in Tyler. My sister-in-law Gillian swears by it, and she lives with a five-star chef, so I imagine it’s pretty good. But I’ve never been there. Wouldn’t even know what to order.”

“You don’t like Indian food?”

“I’ve never tried it. I’m more of a meat-and-potatoes kind of guy.”

Jacqueline looked at him as if he had grown horns. “Do you mean to tell me you have never tasted Indian food? In your whole life?”

“Obviously, I am not cultured. In the least.”

“Do you have any interest in trying it?”

“I’m not opposed, especially since you are in the mood for it. I’d like to take you there.”

Jacqueline’s eyes warmed. “Let’s go, then! It is high time you experienced chicken tikka masala.”

“Chicken what?”

“Chicken tikka masala. It’s my favorite Indian dish. It’s spicy, aromatic, delicious.”

“Sounds scary.”

“You’ll love it.”

Mac called Gillian on his cell phone to get the name of the place, which was R and R Curry. She warned him it was a hole in the wall, and when he drove up to it after following her directions, he saw she wasn’t kidding. It was in the back of a gas station. “This is a little embarrassing,” he said to Jacqueline.

“Why?”

“Because.” Mac searched for the words. Because you look like a movie star and I’m taking you to a gas station for dinner? “I had no intentions of taking you to a dive for dinner.”

“Are you kidding? This is my favorite kind of restaurant.” Jacqueline practically bounced in her seat.

She wasn’t kidding. She was excited. In fact, this was the most animated he had seen her since she’d mimicked The Godfather in his office. He held the door open for her, and they walked to the back of the gas station, toward all sorts of exotic smells that tickled Mac’s nose.

CHAPTER FOUR

JACQUELINE ORDERED CHICKEN tikka masala for both of them with extra naan bread. Mac thanked the server for the ice water. She smiled to herself as he squirmed in his seat, fiddling with the tray of sauces when it was brought. He was obviously out of his element.

“I kind of like this arrangement.” Jacqueline smiled slyly.

“Dinner at a gas station?”

“Well, yes. I love a good dive. But what I meant was being in charge—knowing about something you don’t.”

Mac peered at her over his glasses. “Oh. I see. That’s how it is.”

“It’s a nice change from the office.”

“I’m sure you know more about a lot of things than I do about the world outside my office.” He bit into the naan bread. “I tend to be a little bit of a hermit. At least, that’s what my brothers say.”

Jacqueline saw something in his eyes and heard it in his voice. But what was it, exactly? Regret? Resolve? Resignation?

She traced circles on the surface of her water with a straw. “I know a little bit about a lot of things, but I don’t know anything as deeply as you know your world.” She met his intense gaze. “And I’m afraid I’m the same way with people.”

“What do you mean?” Mac leaned forward.

“It’s the way I was raised. We were gypsies—nomads—never stayed in one place long. My parents both make friends easily, but I’m not like that. By the time I started to feel comfortable with my surroundings and got to know anyone, it was time to move.”

Mac’s startled expression showed his horror. “I cannot imagine that. Honestly, I never would have survived.”

Jacqueline shrugged. She felt a little defensive, though she couldn’t tell why. “Well, it has its perks. I’ve seen a lot of places, met a lot of different kinds of people. You’d survive if it was all you’d ever known.”

The server brought their food. Mac thanked him as he helped set the table. Jacqueline watched with amusement as Mac inhaled the steam rising from his plate and his eyes started watering.

“I don’t know how it tastes yet, but this is good for the sinuses!”

She laughed. Mac watched as she spooned rice from a bowl onto her chicken, mixing them together and coating the rice with the pumpkin-colored sauce. He did the same. Then he dipped the naan bread she offered him into the sauce, tasting it before forking a piece of chicken. His eyes opened wide.

“You like?” she asked.

“Spicy.” Mac took a sip of water. “I like.”

She winked at him. “You need a little spice in your life.”

“So I’ve been told.”

“Who else has told you that?”

“Mostly my three brothers.” Mac stirred in a bit more rice with his chicken. “And Alma. And Ella.”

“Who is Alma?”

“She was our housekeeper growing up. After my parents died, she became more like a second mother to me.”

“I think I remember meeting her once.”

“Really?”

“Yes. There was a study group one time that met at Joiner’s. She made the most amazing snacks for us. Tamales, chicken taquitos, guacamole, sopaipillas...”

“That’s Alma for you.”

“I was hungry a lot. You don’t forget food like that.” Jacqueline felt a pang at the memory and was sure it showed.

Mac’s eyes softened. “You were hungry? I never knew.”

“Joiner didn’t, either—I don’t think anyone did. I mean, it’s not like I was starving or anything. But food was pretty scarce.”

“I’m sorry. That must have been difficult.”

“Yeah, it was. Those days are over now, though.” Jacqueline grinned as she patted her tummy and took another bite of her food.

“Can I ask you about your work with KARIS? Tell me more about it.”

“What do you want to know?”

“How did you develop a passion for it? You said your focus was education for girls—how did that develop?”

Tiny butterflies erupted in her stomach at Mac’s serious expression. He seemed genuinely interested.

“Well, first, education has been so empowering to me personally. It was one stabilizing force in my life growing up, and then college broadened my horizons and opened up so many opportunities for me.” Jacqueline swallowed a sip of water. “One of those was travel abroad, and when I saw how girls in many places in the Middle East were denied this basic right, it broke my heart. I came to believe that helping girls get access to education was a real thing I could do to help the world.”

“That sounds so noble.”

Jacqueline frowned. “Not really.”

“Yes, really.”

“Mac, you have to think outside of Kilgore. At some point, I realized I could be any of those girls. The only difference between us is the geography of our births—nothing they or I chose. How could I not want to help them?”

“It’s still remarkable that you do.”

“I don’t think of it that way. I just think of it as human.”

Mac raised his glass of ice water. “Here’s to you, and Indian food, and being human.”

Jacqueline clinked her glass against his, but didn’t feel completely comfortable. Was he making fun of her? She didn’t know him well enough to be sure.

“What do you care about, Mac? Besides taxes.” She hoped there wasn’t an edge to her voice.

“I care about my brothers.” He paused after that, a little too long for her liking. “I care about hard work, and home, and my church.”

“Anything else?”

“I’ve been trying for some time to restore honor to my family name, but I’ve not been very successful on that project.”

“What do you mean?”

“You must be the only person in Kilgore who doesn’t know the story of my pap, Mason Dixon Temple. He was a wildcatter who went to prison for stealing oil. After he got out, we never saw him again. He died somewhere out west, but his grave has never been found, so there’s never been any closure to his complicated life.”

“You’ve tried to find his grave?”

“Yes—I’ve even paid a private investigator—but so far we’ve not been able to come up with anything. Joiner says he’ll go out west with me so we can look for ourselves. But I don’t know. Sometimes I feel like that’s the last resort—what would I do if we went out there and didn’t find it? It seems impossible to think about having closure without certainty. I guess that’s because certainty might clear our name.” Mac sighed. “It’s just a mess.”

Jacqueline understood what it felt like to be an outsider because of one’s family. She never thought of Joiner and Mac that way growing up, but clearly, everyone had their own set of troubles. “I’m sorry, Mac.”

He drank the last swallow of his water. “It’s no big deal. I’m embarrassed, to be honest, after talking to you about all of this. My concerns must seem pretty small-minded to someone with your kind of vision for the world.”

The server returned to fill their waters and Mac asked for the check. When he paid, she noticed he gave the server a hefty tip.

Jacqueline’s heart softened toward Mac. They were as different as night and day, but he was a good person. And his simplicity was somehow refreshing to her. Steadying. “Not at all,” she told him. “It takes all kinds.”

He drove them back to the office. Dark had fallen early on the January night, and the streetlamps glowed with warm light. As they pulled into the parking lot beside her brother’s Prius, Mac said, “I’d like to follow you home, if that’s okay, just to see you in.”

“That’s really not necessary. I’m a big girl.”

“Still, I’d feel better. Humor me?”

Eyes the color of dark amber smoldered at her with what seemed like more than just concern. This guy could be pretty intense, it seemed, and she liked it. She raised her eyebrows. “You’re the boss.”

CHAPTER FIVE

MAC FOLLOWED JACQUELINE across town. She turned down what Kilgore locals called “Church Row,” a street that was home to the Episcopalian, Methodist, Presbyterian and First Baptist churches. Jacqueline pulled into the driveway of a tiny old stone house across from the Methodist church. The house was shrouded by a craggy oak tree in need of trimming. The porch light flickered a soft white, revealing a grapevine wreath on the door and green welcome mat. Mac pulled his truck in behind her.

Jacqueline got out of her car, but instead of going to the door of her house she walked toward his truck. He rolled down the window. “Since you’re here, you want to come in for a cup of decaf?”

“I don’t drink decaf.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. He felt unnerved, as though he’d insulted her somehow.

“But I would like to come in.” He slid out of his seat, worrying a bit about the appropriateness of what he was doing, but he quickly dismissed those thoughts. There was nothing wrong with being friendly.

She used her key to go in a side door, and they took their coats off and hung them on hooks. A small lamp illuminated the table by the doorway where she laid her keys. She flipped a switch to turn on another light and Mac followed her into a tiny kitchen. White cabinets framed a white stove, from which she grabbed a red teapot. She filled it with water and returned it to the stove, clicking the gas burner till it ignited. She motioned for him to sit down at a round ice-cream shop table with an oak top in the corner of the room. Then she brought two mugs and an assortment of teas to the table and sat down in the chair opposite him.

“Which one of these is best?” he asked, turning the teas and reading labels.

“I like the chai or the ginger peach. But the peppermint is also nice.”

Mac unwrapped a peppermint tea bag from its package and hung it over the side of his mug. When the kettle whistled, Jacqueline brought it and filled his first, then poured her own mug full of chai. She giggled.

He frowned. “What? What is it?”

“You don’t look very cozy in that chair.”

He smiled. His six-foot-four frame made the set seem like doll furniture.

She rose. “Come on. Let’s go in here where it’s more comfortable.”

Jacqueline led Mac out of the kitchen and down a short, narrow hall into the living room. She sat down on a horribly patterned sofa and he took the mismatched chair adjacent to it, putting his feet up on the pea green–colored ottoman. “That’s something nice,” he commented, settling in. The chair was surprisingly comfortable.

She laughed and the sound was like music. “Nothing but the best Kilgore Goodwill store had to offer.”

“I like it. The whole room is—creative.” Mac looked around, taking in the macrame design on the wall, orange shag rug and the beat-up coffee table where a wooden bowl full of pecans with a silver nutcracker sat. He tried to suppress thoughts of who the previous owners of this collection could have been, and what hygienic habits they might have been lacking. Breathe. He took a sip of his tea.

Jacqueline eased off her heels and put her feet on the table, wriggling her toes inside her gray stockings. “It was kind of you to follow me home.” Her eyes sparkled with warmth as she peered at him over her tea mug.

“It was kind of you to invite me in.” For some reason, Mac wasn’t bothered by her feet, even though he had a foot aversion. At least with other people’s feet.

“Are you cold?”

“A bit. Is it hard to keep this little old house warm?” Mac looked around for a thermostat.

“Check this out.” Jacqueline set down her tea and walked across the tiny room to the fireplace. She picked up a brass key off the mantel, fit it into a square on the hearth and turned it. Then she lit a match and tossed it into the firebox. Poof! A fire blazed, but there was no wood.