Untethered Read online

  “It can’t be subtle,” she thought aloud. “It has to be firm…even brazen maybe.”

  Marie, Vilma, and Ann remained silent as Cricket continued to muse. Yet even for the silence, nothing came to Cricket’s mind—nothing, that is, but what to her was the obvious. The time had passed when it came to offering anything in the line of delicate clues to Hudson Oliver concerning Marie’s feelings. Nope. The ox was in the mire; the eleventh hour was at hand. Cricket grinned as she thought how proud Vilma would be of her rather scriptural considerations. Still, it was true. If the Oliver family was planning on leaving Pike’s Creek and taking their handsome son Hudson with them, then Marie had to act—and boldly.

  “It’s simple,” Cricket announced. “You’ve got to tell him how you feel, Marie. That’s all there is to it. We’ve lost our chance at easin’ the man into it.”

  “What? No!” Marie exclaimed. “Have you lost your ever-lovin’ mind, Cricket?”

  But the more Cricket considered the idea, the more certain she was of what must be done. “It’s the only way, Marie,” she answered. “We don’t have time for willy-nillyin’ now. Hudson has to know how true and deep your feelin’s are. If you want him to stay, then he has to know he’s stayin’ for a woman who loves him and wants to be his wife. Therefore, I propose this. We figure out how to get Hudson out of the house Friday night after dark. Maybe we can get him out to that old lean-to at the back of his father’s property…say we saw a coyote or somethin’ out there stalkin’ the henhouse.”

  Cricket looked to Vilma and Ann to find both were nodding in agreement—obviously approving of her plan. It was only Marie that sat shaking her head, every ounce of pink having drained from her pretty face.

  “Cricket,” Marie began, “I could never just walk up and…and just…just tell him! Not right out loud to his face.”

  “You have to!” Cricket told her with rising desperation in her bosom. Wanting to allow little to no time for Marie to argue further, Cricket continued, “Once we get him out to the old lean-to…you just tell him, Marie. You flat out tell Hudson Oliver that you love him and want him to stay in Pike’s Creek with you.” Cricket inhaled a breath of courage and added, “And then you kiss him…and I mean square on the lips.”

  “Cricket!” Vilma gasped. “You cannot be serious! Kiss Hudson Oliver? In front of God and everything? You want Marie to kiss that man without even—”

  “She has to kiss him, Vilma,” Cricket interrupted. “And besides, God is everywhere…so it doesn’t matter where they’re standin’ when she kisses him. God will see it.” She was feeling almost frantic now, her heart beginning to break the way she knew Marie’s had begun to. Turning to face Marie, Cricket took her hands in her own, forcing her friend to look her in the eyes. “Hudson has to know you’re sincere, Marie. He has to know you love him! He won’t know it unless you show him as well as tell him. You know how men are. Their heads are as hard as oak.” She paused, her own heart aching as she studied the fear in her friend’s frightened blue eyes. “Fight for him, Marie,” she whispered. “If you’re not willin’ to fight for somethin’ you love, then you don’t deserve to own it.”

  “I do love him, Cricket,” Marie whispered as tears escaped her eyes to trickle over her cheeks. “I do. B-but to walk right up to him and…he’s never even once asked to come courtin’ me or anything, Cricket. What if…what if he doesn’t feel anything for me? What if he laughs at me?”

  Cricket shook her head. “He won’t laugh, Marie,” she answered. “Hudson Oliver is one of the best men any of us have ever known. He won’t laugh.” Cricket took a deep breath and added, “And if he doesn’t return your feelin’s…well, then at least you’ll know you tried. You won’t go through life always wonderin’ ‘what if’ where Hudson is concerned.”

  “Oh, this is all so easy for you to plot out, Cricket,” Vilma offered. She pointed a rather bony index finger at Marie and in her preacher’s-daughter voice said, “You can sit there and tell Marie to walk right up to a man, tell him she loves him, and kiss him square on the lips…but I don’t see you doin’ the likes. I don’t see you waltzin’ up to Heathro Thibodaux confessin’ your feelin’s and kissin’ on him.”

  “That’s very different, Vilma…and you know it,” Ann interjected.

  “Not really,” Vilma countered.

  Cricket couldn’t understand Vilma. When compared with Heathro Thibodaux, Hudson Oliver was a boy! And besides, Marie had known Hudson for nearly ever. Heathro Thibodaux had only moved to Pike’s Creek six months before. Hudson Oliver and Heathro Thibodaux? It was onions and oranges.

  But Cricket looked to Marie. Marie loved Hudson so perfectly—and she’d loved him for a long time. The pain in her heart seemed to leap right out of Marie’s bosom to be shared in Cricket’s, and Cricket knew she could not watch Hudson Oliver leave Pike’s Creek—not without Marie as his bride.

  Furthermore, she knew what Vilma meant—what she was implying—that Marie needed strength, the strength in knowing that another person could find courage along with her. Cricket sighed and looked to Vilma. Vilma’s frown revealed guilt mingled with uncertainty when she shrugged.

  “Heathro Thibodaux is different,” Cricket began. “He doesn’t know me from a night crawler in a rain puddle. Hudson knows you, Marie. You all have grown up together.”

  “But, Cricket…I-I can’t do it,” Marie whispered, trepidation and disappointment blending in her pained expression. “I can’t just walk up to Hudson and tell him how I feel. And I certainly can’t kiss him! I just can’t!”

  “Maybe we can’t ask Marie to do somethin’ we aren’t willin’ to do ourselves, Cricket,” Vilma timidly suggested. But Cricket knew the we meant her and nobody else. Still, what were good friends for if not to weather the good, the bad, and the terrifying with?

  “Now, let’s just think this out,” Ann offered, sensitive to everyone’s feelings and fears. “Let’s just think.”

  Cricket released Marie’s hands and slumped back in her chair, defeated. She felt entirely drained of the enthusiasm she’d known only minutes before. But she’d tried. She would always remind herself—whenever she saw Marie sad and alone, living as the spinster of Pike’s Creek and still pining away after Hudson Oliver twenty years from now—Cricket would always remind herself that she’d tried.

  “Well, if anyone wants my opinion, I think Cricket’s right, Vilma,” Ann the peacemaker ventured.

  Cricket was a little comforted by Ann’s sound support. She looked to Ann and smiled. “Thank you, Ann,” she said.

  But Ann bit her lip, wearing a rather shameful expression, and added, “But I think Vilma’s right too, Cricket.”

  “What?” Cricket gasped.

  “I mean…it’s all fine and dandy that you come up with this great design of havin’ our Marie just walk right on up to Hudson and confess herself,” Ann explained. “But I think Vilma has a point. You have been sweet on Heathro Thibodaux from the moment you saw him…and I don’t see why you can’t just…well, I think you should choose Heathro Thibodaux for this Friday night.”

  “Ann!” Cricket exclaimed, feeling momentarily betrayed. Surely Ann saw the difference between Marie’s feelings for Hudson Oliver and her own for Heathro Thibodaux. Again, it was oranges and onions!

  “I mean…I mean to say,” Ann began, “why don’t you just choose Heathro Thibodaux as your person for Friday night? You don’t need to confess your undyin’ love for him or anything like that. You could just…just welcome him into town.” Ann reached out, placing a calming, supportive hand on Cricket’s knee. “You know how folks are around him. He’s so frownin’ and angry-lookin’ all the time that no one dares to befriend him. So why don’t you do it? I mean, you don’t have to tell him you’re sweet on him. You just have to welcome him to town and all.”

  “And you have to kiss him,” Vilma added.

  “What?” Cricket, Marie, and Ann exclaimed in unison.

  Vilma shrugged. “Remember last month, Cricket?
When we were talkin’ about our most romantic daydreams? You said you’d rather kiss Heathro Thibodaux than anything else in all the whole wide world. So? Here’s your chance to do it. Friday night, you walk up to Heathro Thibodaux, properly welcome him to town, and steal a kiss from him while you’re at it.”

  “I just meant she should talk to him, Vilma,” Ann clarified. “J-just welcome him to town and all, so that he knows somebody in Pike’s Creek cares about him.”

  “A lot of people in Pike’s Creek care about him, Ann,” Vilma reminded with an insinuative wink. “Why, Widow Rutherford’s eyes nearly bug clean out of her head whenever he walks by.” She looked to Cricket. “Every woman in Pike’s Creek—every woman in the county, for that matter—daydreams over Heathro Thibodaux as much as you do, Cricket.”

  “Does that include you, Vilma?” Cricket asked in a whisper. She was inconceivably unsettled. The mere thought of approaching Heathro Thibodaux struck such a nervous anxiety within her that she began to tremble a little. Add to that the wild, insane suggestion that she kiss him, and she nearly felt as if she might vomit.

  “All I’m sayin’ is that this is your chance too, Cricket,” Vilma offered, “your chance to kiss Heathro Thibodaux the way you’ve always wanted to before some woman snatches him up for good. And it will give Marie the courage to talk to Hudson at the same time.” Vilma put a comforting arm around Marie’s shoulders. “Isn’t that right, Marie?”

  “I’m only tryin’ to help Marie, Vilma, and—” Cricket began.

  “I know. But I am too. Truly,” Vilma interrupted. “Think of it this way, Cricket. This way, you both might get the deepest desire of your hearts.”

  Cricket tried to keep her trembling arms and legs still as she looked to Marie. “Marie?” she asked.

  “You don’t have to do it, Cricket,” Marie interrupted. “You’re right. If I love Hudson…if I want him to belong to me…then I need to do this. You’re right. This was about what I need to do.”

  Cricket felt the excess moisture brimming in her eyes, for there it was—from Marie’s own lips, the confirmation that her friend needed to see Cricket’s bravery manifest before she could find her own.

  Marie had to win Hudson Oliver. She just had to! Cricket imagined for a moment how wonderful it would be to attend their wedding, Marie and Hudson’s. In her mind’s eye, she could see little raven-haired babies at Marie’s knee. Hudson Oliver had raven hair as well—and blue eyes. No doubt the babies Marie and Hudson would have together would look just like little dark-haired angels.

  Furthermore (though she hated to admit it to herself), Vilma Stanley was right. Someday a woman would rope Heathro Thibodaux. Someday a woman would tie him up and own him—tether him to her porch and keep him forever. And whether it was the young and beautiful Widow Rutherford or Vilma Stanley herself, Cricket wanted to live her life knowing that she’d felt what it was to kiss him—that she’d had the courage to walk up to the handsome, ex-Texas Ranger, press her lips to his, and let the memory linger in her heart forever.

  “Would it help you, Marie?” Cricket asked, commanding the moisture in her eyes to retreat. “Would it help if I chose Heathro Thibodaux for myself for Friday? If…if I find the courage to welcome him to town and steal a kiss from him…will it help you to have the courage to talk to Hudson?”

  She already knew the answer to her own question—but she had to ask it, just in case she were wrong.

  “Truthfully?” Marie asked—and Cricket’s heart sank.

  “Yes. Truthfully,” Cricket answered.

  “Then yes,” Marie admitted. “I think…I think if I could see you walk right up to that devilishly attractive Heathro Thibodaux and steal a kiss…then I could walk right up to Hudson Oliver, tell him how I feel, and beg him to stay in Pike’s Creek with me.”

  “Then that’s what I’ll do,” Cricket said. She forced a smile as she nodded. “For you, Marie. I’ll do it for you. I-I want you to be happy. I want to see you marry Hudson Oliver and have his babies and live happily ever after.”

  She ignored the just plain fatigue that was washing over her—the sense of weariness at always having to rise up and soldier on for everyone else’s benefit.

  Inhaling her own breath of determination, she said, “Then I’m gonna welcome Heathro Thibodaux to town.” Marie smiled, and the sight of the sudden courage and hope visibly raining over her gave Cricket’s heart a lift. “Yep. That’s who I choose for Friday…Texas Ranger Heathro Thibodaux. And Marie’s gonna lure Hudson Oliver into stayin’ in Pike’s Creek,” she began, attempting to shift the burden of responsibility. Then, looking to Vilma and Ann, she asked, “So? Who are your choices for this Friday night, ladies?”

  Vilma smiled and breathily sighed with relief. Vilma wanted Marie to win Hudson Oliver as much as Cricket and Ann did, and Cricket had to admire her insight into how to buoy Marie’s courage—even if she had rather thrown Cricket to the lions in doing it.

  “I’m thinkin’ it’s about time old Mrs. Maloney had that pretty teapot she’s been dreamin’ over,” Vilma answered. “You know…the one in the general store? The porcelain one with the yellow rose pattern?”

  Cricket’s mouth dropped open in astonishment. Everybody in town knew old Maymee Maloney had been dreaming about owning the pretty porcelain teapot in the general store’s front window for over a year. And it wasn’t so much that nobody in town wished they could give it to Maymee; it was just that nobody in town could afford it!

  “Vilma!” Ann exclaimed. “You’re not suggestin’ that we…that we steal that teapot and give it to—”

  “Oh, land sakes, no!” Vilma interrupted. “For cryin’ in the bucket, Ann! Thou shalt not steal—it’s one of the ten. I cannot believe you’d think I would even consider—”

  “Well, what is your plan then, Vilma?” Marie asked.

  Cricket perked up as well, wildly curious about how in the world Vilma expected them all to acquire the teapot for Mrs. Maloney. Certainly her anxiety of Marie and Hudson was lingering about; her anxiety over how in all the world she’d ever find her own courage to approach Heathro Thibodaux was there. But Vilma’s suggestion was almost more inconceivable to pull off than Cricket’s and Marie’s.

  It was then and only then, as Vilma pulled the ribbon from her hair, that Cricket knew just how they were going to acquire the teapot. Or rather how Vilma was going to acquire it.

  “Vilma!” Ann exclaimed in an astonished whisper as Vilma’s normally waist-length auburn hair tumbled from the ribbon to barely reach her shoulders.

  “You sold your hair!” Marie breathed, awestruck.

  Vilma smiled. “I did. To that man who makes wigs over in Thistle. He gave me so much money for my hair…bein’ that the color is so vastly sought after and so likewise rare.”

  Cricket swallowed her mild irritation. Leave it to Vilma to do something so self-sacrificing and yet still find a way to ruin the beauty of it by bragging. Yet she knew how important Vilma’s “vastly sought after and so likewise rare” auburn hair was to her. It was a mammoth sacrifice on Vilma’s part—and for a very kind and thoughtful reason.

  “The wigmaker gave me just enough to purchase the teapot for Mrs. Maloney,” Vilma sighed with pleasure. She turned and lifted a box from the floor behind her chair. Removing the lid, she revealed the contents of the box to be the beautiful teapot Mrs. Maloney had been dreaming of owning for so very long. “I even asked Mr. Brooks never to tell one livin’ soul who it was that purchased it. I figure we can leave it on Mrs. Maloney’s front porch with a sweet little note attached.”

  “But…but you’re the one who managed to acquire the teapot, Vilma,” Cricket began. “I think you should be the one to give it to her. After all, it’s such a thoughtful gift…and so expensive.”

  But Vilma shook her head. “No. I want us all to give it to her. Every one of us has wanted to be able to buy the teapot for Mrs. Maloney for months and months now.”

  Cricket smiled, astonished at how back and forth V
ilma’s moods could be.

  “And anyway, I’ll always know that we could never have done it without me,” Vilma added. Cricket almost laughed out loud. Vilma was such a vain little thing! It was almost too entertaining to keep from giggling over. “I mean, none of you all could’ve fetched the price my hair did from the wigmaker in Thistle,” Vilma added.

  Ann, Marie, and Cricket exchanged amused glances. Vilma—she wasn’t one to stand still and let the chance of claiming glory for something simply pass her by. But Cricket didn’t care if Vilma hung the fact of the matter over their heads for the rest of their lives. She knew that Marie and Ann wanted Mrs. Maloney to have the porcelain teapot as badly as they’d ever wanted anything.

  “It’s incredibly thoughtful and selfless, Vilma,” Cricket said—and sincerely. “Mrs. Maloney will love that teapot more than anyone else in the world ever would have.”

  Vilma smiled and sighed—almost as if she’d been concerned that the others wouldn’t approve of her choice of whom to cheer up on Friday night, and how.

  “Well, now I feel just ridiculous and pitiful,” Ann mumbled.

  “Whatever for, Ann?” Marie asked.

  “Well, you’re gonna confess your heart to Hudson Oliver,” Ann explained, waving a hand in Marie’s direction. “And Cricket’s gonna welcome Heathro Thibodaux to town with a big ol’ kiss.” She sighed, nodded toward Vilma, and added, “And Vilma’s gone and cut off her hair and sold it to buy that pretty teapot for Mrs. Maloney.”

  “So?” Vilma urged. “Is it that you’re havin’ trouble thinkin’ of somebody to do for, Ann?”

  “No,” Ann mumbled. “I have the someone…but now I’m just wonderin’ if the somethin’ I was plannin’ on is enough.”

  Cricket smiled. Ann was so tenderhearted and sweet. Her doings for other folks were always, always, always profoundly thoughtful and self-sacrificing. Ann didn’t see her own goodness.