Clay blinked with surprise at his out-of-character, maudlin musings. This hokey Elvis-mania that pervaded Memphis must be invading his brain, like a virus. The Elvis virus. Ha, ha, ha!
The bellhop’s eyes bored into him, then softened, as if seeing his thoughts.
Clay didn’t like the uncomfortable feeling he got under the bellhop’s intense stare.
“You really plannin’ on kicking the Fallons off your property? At Christmastime?” the bellhop inquired in a condemning tone of voice.
“Damn straight.”
“Even the iciest heart can be melted.”
Now what the hell does that mean? “Yeah, well, it’s going to take a monumental fever in my case, because I have plans for that property.” This is the craziest conversation in the world. Why am I even talking to this kook?
“You know what they say about the best-laid plans?”
“Am I supposed to understand that?” Shut up, Jessup. Just ignore him.
“Sometimes God sticks out his big toe and trips us humans. You might just be in for a big stumble.”
God? Big toe? The man is nuts. “Lock up on your way out,” Clay advised, opening the hallway door. Time to put a stop to this nonsense…the bellhop, the hotel, the Nativity scene, the whole freakin’ mess.
But damned if the impertinent old fart didn’t begin humming “Fever” as Clay closed the door behind him, thus getting in the last word.
“This is the dumbest damn thing you’ve ever conned us into, Annie.”
“Tsk-tsk,” Annie told her brother Chet in stiff-lipped sotto voce. “We’re supposed to be statues. No talking. Furthermore, St. Joseph should not be swearing.”
A flush crept up the face of her oldest brother, who was handsome even with the exaggerated Elvis hairdo. Chet was the kind of guy who would probably make a young girl’s heart stop even if he were bald.
Good looks aside, her heart went out to Chet. He was twenty-five, only three years younger than she, and so very solemn for his age. Well, he had good reason, she supposed. He’d certainly never hesitated over taking responsibility for raising his baby, Jason, when his girlfriend Emmy Lou abandoned the infant to his care a month ago. Even before that, he’d tried hard to be the man of the family ever since their parents had died in a car accident ten years ago, changing overnight from a carefree teenager to a weary adult.
Well, they’d all changed with that tragedy. No use dwelling on what couldn’t be helped.
“There’s no one around now,” Chet pointed out defensively.
That was true. It was lunch hour and a Sunday, so only a few people had straggled by thus far. But tourist sidewalk traffic past their panorama on Blues Street, just off the famous Beale Street, should pick up soon. Yesterday, their first day trying out this enterprise, had brought in an amazing $700 in tips between eleven A.M. and five P.M. Annie was hoping that in the five days remaining before Christmas they would be able to earn another $3500, enough to save the farm, so to speak.
“I feel like an absolute fool,” Chet grumbled.
“Me, too,” her other four brothers concurred with a unified groan.
“Wayne keeps trying to bite my butt,” Johnny added. “I swear he’s the meanest donkey in the entire world. Pure one-hundred-proof jackass, if you ask me.”
“He is not mean,” Jerry Lee argued. The only one Wayne could abide was Jerry Lee, who’d bred him for a 4-H project five years ago. “Wayne senses that you don’t like him, and he’s trying to get your attention.”
“By biting my butt?”
Everyone laughed at that.
“I had a girl once who bit my butt—” Roy started to say.
Annie gasped. “Roy Fallon! If you say one more word, I swear I’ll soap your mouth out when we get home. I don’t care if you are twenty-two years old.”
Everyone laughed some more. Except for Annie.
“Your sheep keep nuzzling this fleece outfit you made me wear,” Johnny continued to gripe. He directed his complaint now at Annie. “I think they think I’m one of their cousins.”
Ethel and Lucy were Annie’s pets. She’d won them when they were only baby lambs in a grange raffle two years ago.
“Stop your whining, boys,” she snapped. “Do you think I’m enjoying myself? My scalp itches. My skin is probably breaking out in zits like a popcorn machine. I’m surely straining some muscles in my eyelids with these false eyelashes. And I’m just praying that the barn roof doesn’t cave in before we earn enough money for its repair. Or that the price of milk doesn’t drop again. Or that we’ll be able to afford this semester at vet school for Roy. And—”
“Don’t blame this sideshow on me,” Roy chimed in. “It’s not my fault the government cut the student-aid program.”
“Oh, Roy, don’t get your sideburns in a dither,” she said, already regretting her sharp words.
“Or get your duck’s-ass hairdo in a backwind,” Hank taunted.
Annie shot Hank a scowl, and continued, “No one’s to blame, Roy. Our problems have been piling up for a long time.”
“Well, I’ll tell you one thing. If anyone from school comes by, I’m outta here, barn roof or no barn roof,” Jerry Lee asserted. At fifteen, peer approval was critical, and dressing up as an Elvis wise man probably didn’t score many points with the cheerleading squad.
“You’re just worried that Sally Sue Sorenson will see you,” Hank teased.
“Am not,” Jerry Lee argued, despite his red face.
“Shhhh,” Annie cautioned.
A group of tourists approached, and Annie’s family froze into their respective parts. Johnny, her youngest brother—God bless him—broke loose with an absolutely angelic version of “Silent Night.” He must have inherited his singing talent from their parents, who’d been unsuccessful Grand Ole Opry wanna-bes. The rest of them could barely carry a tune.
In appreciation, the group, which included a man, a woman, and three young children, waited through the entire song, then dropped a five-dollar bill into the kettle, while several couples following in their wake donated a bunch of dollar bills each, along with some change. Thank God for the Christmas spirit.
After they passed by, Roy picked up on their interrupted conversation. “Actually, Jerry Lee, don’t be too quick to discount the appeal of this Elvis stuff. Being an Elvis look-alike could be a real chick magnet for some babes.”
“You’ve been hanging around barns too long,” Jerry Lee scoffed, but there was a note of uncertainty in his voice. Roy was a first-year vet student and graduate of Memphis State. Jerry Lee wasn’t totally sure his big brother, at twenty-two, hadn’t picked up a few bits of male-female wisdom.
“He’s bullshittin’ you,” Hank interjected with a laugh, ignoring the glare Annie flashed his way for the coarse language. Hank was a high school senior, a football player, and the self-proclaimed stud of the family.
Jerry Lee gave Roy a dirty look for his ill advice. Obviously, Hank ranked as the better “chick” expert.
“What do you think, Annie?” Roy asked, chuckling at Jerry Lee’s gullibility.
“How would I know what attracts women? I haven’t had a date in two years. Then it was with Frankie Wilks, the milk-tank driver.”
“And he resembles the back end of a hound dog more than Elvis,” Hank remarked with a hoot of laughter at his own joke.
“That was unkind, Hank,” Annie chastised, “just because he’s a little…hairy.”
They all made snorting sounds of ridicule.
Frankie Wilks had a bushy beard and mustache and a huge mop of frizzy hair. Masses of hair covered his forearms and even peeked out at the neck of his milk company uniform. Hirsute would be an understatement.
“You could go out with guys if you wanted to,” Chet offered softly. “You don’t have to give up your life for us or the farm. It was different when we were younger, but—”
“Uh-oh!” Roy said.
Everyone stopped talking and stiffened to attention.
A man wa
s stomping down the sidewalk toward them, having emerged from the hotel entrance. He wore a conservative black business suit, so finely cut it must have been custom-made, with a snow white shirt and a dark-striped tie, spit-shined wing-tip shoes, and a black cashmere overcoat that probably cost as much as a new barn roof.
He was a taller, leaner version of Richard Gere, with the same short-clipped dark hair. He would have been heart-stoppingly handsome if it weren’t for the frown lines that seemed to be etched permanently about his flaming eyes and tight-set mouth. How could a man so young be so disagreeable in appearance?
Despite his demeanor, Annie felt a strange heat rush through her just gazing at him. It was embarrassment, of course. What woman enjoyed looking like a tart in front of a gorgeous man?
Unfortunately, Annie suspected that the flame in his eyes was directed toward them. And she had a pretty good idea who he was, too. Clayton Jessup III, the new owner of the Original Heartbreak Hotel and the vacant lot where they had set up their Nativity scene.
The kindly couple who managed the hotel, David and Marion Bloom, had given them permission for the Nativity scene when Annie had asked several days ago. “After all, the lot has been vacant for more than thirty years,” Marion had remarked. “It’s about time someone made use of it.”
But when Annie and Chet had stopped in the hotel a short time ago, where David and Marion had also been nice enough to let them use an anteroom for changing Jason, they soon realized that everyone at the hotel was in an uproar. The new owner had arrived, unannounced, and he intended to raze the site and erect a strip shopping mall. As if Memphis needed another mall!
Didn’t the man recognize the sentimental value of the hotel and this lot? No, she guessed, a man like him wouldn’t. Money would be his bottom line.
Just before Mr. Jessup got to them, some tourists paused and listened with “oohs” and “ahhs” of appreciation, dropping more paper money and change into their kettle. The boys stood rock still, but Annie saw the gleam of interest in their eyes at a petite blonde in gray wool slacks and a cardigan over a peach-colored turtleneck who stood staring at them for a long time. There was a hopeless sag to her shoulders until Hank winked at her, and she burst out with a little laugh.
Drawing the sides of his overcoat back, and planting his hands on slim hips, Mr. Jessup glared at them, his lips curling with disdain upon getting a close-up view of their attire. At least he had the courtesy to wait till the tourists passed by before snarling, “What the hell are you doing on my property?”
The baby’s eyes shot open, and he began to whimper at the harsh voice.
“We have permission,” Chet said, his voice as frosty as Mr. Jessup’s as he leaned over and soothed his child. “Hush, now. Back to sleep, son,” he crooned, rocking the manger slightly.
Annie tried to explain, “Mr. and Mrs. Bloom told us it would be all right. We’ll only be here for a few days, and—”
He put up a hand to halt her words. “You won’t be here for even a few more hours.” He peered down at his watch— probably one of those Rolex things, equal in value to the mortgage on their farm—and grated, “You have exactly fifteen minutes to vacate these premises, or I’ll have the police evict you forcibly. So stop fluttering those ridiculous eyelashes at me.”
“I was not fluttering.”
“Hey, it’s not necessary to yell at our sister,” Roy yelled. He, Hank, Jerry Lee, and Johnny were coming up behind Annie to form a protective flank. Chet had taken Jason out of the manger and was holding him to his shoulder, as if Mr. Jessup might do the infant bodily harm.
“Furthermore, those animals had better not have done any damage,” Mr. Jessup continued, and proceeded to walk toward the shed where Wayne was hee-hawing and the sheep were bleating, as if sensing some disaster in progress.
“No! Don’t!” they all shouted in warning.
Too late.
Mr. Jessup slipped on a pile of sheep dung. Righting himself, he noticed Wayne’s back leg shoot out. To avoid the kick, he spun on his ankle. Annie could almost hear the tendons tearing as his ankle twisted. His expensive shoes, now soiled, went out from under him, and the man went down hard, on his back, with his head hitting a small rock with an ominous crack.
“I’m going to sue your eyelashes off,” Mr. Jessup said on a moan, just before he passed out.
CHAPTER TWO
He was drunk…as a skunk.
Well, not actually drunk. More like under the influence of painkillers. But the effect was the same. Three sheets to the Memphis wind.
“Oh, I wish I was not in the land of Dixie,” Mr. Jessup belted out. He’d been singing nonstop for the past five minutes.
Annie and the emergency room intern exchanged a look.
Annie tried to get him to lie down on the table. “Mr. Jessup, you really should settle—”
“Call me Clay.” He flashed her a lopsided grin, accompanied by the most amazing, utterly adorable dimples. Then he resumed his rendition of “Dixie” with a stanza ending, “…strange folks there are not forgoooootten.”
Geez!
“I wish I’d bought that t-shirt I saw at the airport.” Mr. Jessup…rather, Clay…stopped singing for a moment to inject that seemingly irrelevant thought. “It said, ‘Elvis Is Dead, And I’m Not Feelin’ So Good Myself.’ Ha, ha, ha!”
“He’s having a rather…um, strange allergic reaction. Or perhaps I just gave him a little too much Darvon,” the young doctor mumbled, casting a sheepish glance toward the other busy cubicles to see if any of his colleagues had overheard.
“No kidding, Ben Casey!” Annie remarked. Clay was now leading an orchestra in his own version of “Flight of the Bumble bee.” She didn’t think Rimsky-Korsakov had actual buzzing sounds in his original opera containing that music.
“You have biiiiig hair,” he observed to Annie then, cocking his head this way and that to get just the right angle in studying its huge contours. “Does it hurt?”
“No.”
“Does your boyfriend like it?”
“I don’t have a boyfriend.”
He nodded his head, as if that was a given. “A man couldn’t get close enough to kiss you. Or other things,” he noted, jiggling his eyebrows at her.
The man was going to hate himself tomorrow if he remembered any of this.
Annie was already hating herself…because, for some reason, the word kiss coming from his lips—who knew they would be so full and sensual when not pressed together into a thin line of disapproval?—prompted all kinds of erotic images to flicker in her underused libido. She pressed a palm to her forehead. “Boy, is it hot in here!”
“I’ll second that. I’m burning up.” Clay twisted his head from side to side, massaging the nape of his neck with one hand. Then, before she could protest, he loosened the string tie at the back of his shoulders and let his hospital gown slide to the floor. He wore nothing but a pair of boring white boxer shorts.
Boring, hell! He was sexy as sin.
Annie’s mouth gaped open, and her temperature shot up another notch or two at all that skin. And muscle. And dark, silky hair.
Funny how hair on Frankie Wilks seemed repulsive. But with this man, she had to practically hold her hand back for fear she’d run her fingertips through his chest hairs. Or forearm hairs. Or—lordy, lordy—thigh hairs.
How could a man so stodgy and mean be so primitively attractive? She’d gotten to know just how stodgy and mean he could be on the ride over here. And how did a man who presumably worked at a desk all day long maintain such a flat, muscle-planed stomach?
Startled, she clicked her jaw shut.
“It’s not warm in here,” the doctor pointed out, intruding into her thoughts. Thank God! “Perhaps you both have a fever. But, no, I checked your temperature, Mr. Jessup. It’s normal.”
Normal? There’s nothing normal about the steam heat rising in this room.
Clay glared at Annie accusingly. Was he going to blame her for a fever, too? To her horror, he br
oke out with the husky, intimate lyrics, “You give me fever.” He was staring at her the whole time.
Oh, mercy! Who would have thought he even knew an Elvis lyric? It had probably seeped into his unconscious over the years through some sort of Muzak osmosis.
“The medication will wear off in a couple of hours,” the doctor was saying. “After that, we’ll switch to Tylenol with codeine. Considering his reaction, I would suggest you give him only half a tablet.”
“Me? Me?” Hey, I’ve got to get back to the Nativity scene. Without my supervision, who knows what my brothers are doing? Probably a Macarena version of “Away In a Manger.” I wouldn’t put it past Roy and Hank to be flirting with passersby, too.
The doctor finished wrapping Clay’s sprained ankle tightly and took on what he’d probably practiced in front of a mirror as a serious medical demeanor. “The goose egg on the back of your head is just a hard knock, but you should be watched closely for the next twenty-four hours. I don’t like the way you reacted to the Darvon. Do you have family nearby to keep an eye on you?”
“I have no family,” Clay declared woefully.
He’s not married. Annie did a mental high-five, though why, she couldn’t imagine. Her heart would have gone out to the man at that poignant comment if it weren’t for the fact that he was back to glowering at her. She tried to understand why he directed all his hostility toward her. No doubt it stemmed from the fact that he’d been really angry about the accident and blamed it all on her family. “You and your crazy brothers are going to pay,” he’d informed her repeatedly on the drive to the hospital, during the long wait in the emergency room, throughout the examination, right up until the painkillers had performed their miraculous transformation. Good thing she’d talked her brothers into manning the Nativity scene, minus a Blessed Virgin, till she returned. They would have belted Clay for his surliness!