Getting Lucky by Carolyn Brown Page A

if she had to hitchhike back to Saint Jo, she wasn't spending another minute under the hateful stares of the female Luckadeau population. Fate did step in at that moment and save her from walking home. Mamie had spilled beer all over the front of her blouse and was headed home to change. Annie threw a pouting fit but Julie held her ground and Mamie took them home.
       Late that night Julie sat with her legs drawn up to her chin watching the moon from her bedroom window.
       "I wouldn't trust me either if I were Griffin," she whispered.
       She vowed she'd avoid places where he might be from that time on. She had to be in church with him, but she could sit across the sanctuary in another pew other than right behind him. She had to see him when he brought Lizzy to school. Other than that, she'd be careful.
       Rodeos were the first place she'd avoid.
       Mamie had said they were going to a regatta the next Saturday. Right there in the middle of northern Texas there was the Nocona Sailboat Regatta at the Nocona Lake and Mamie wouldn't take no for an answer when she said they were going.
       At least she didn't have to worry about Griffin being there. A bull rider damn sure didn't sail.

Chapter 5

    THE COMMITTEE MEETING OF THE TOURISM GROUP MET on Sunday afternoon on the lawn in the center of the town square in front of Molly's. At two-thirty that hot September afternoon Mamie stepped up into the gazebo and called the meeting to order.
       "We are here to discuss putting plans in motion for a holiday theme somewhat like the one we have on the Fourth of July. We need to make our decisions now so I can contact the vendors who are eager to come back with their fall merchandise," she said.
       Julie stood on the fringe of the crowd of maybe forty people. Some had brought their lawn chairs, but she and Annie stood to one side of the gazebo. She was there to support Mamie, although after her stunt concerning the rodeo she'd had second thoughts about it. Mamie had admitted on the way home that she had indeed known that Griffin would be at the rodeo but in her opinion Julie needed to see more of him, not less. And that she'd wondered about Annie when she saw her picture. Her opinion was that Julie should be his friend since he was Annie's biological uncle, and they should work together for the girls' sake. Julie had set her straight when she told her that Annie was a Donavan and would never fit into that Luckadeau bunch.
       Mamie had told her to look at Annie's hair. She was a Luckadeau no matter what name was on her birth certificate.
       "This is an open forum. Does anyone have anything to say?" Mamie asked.
       Julie had plenty to say now that she'd slept on the idea, but it had nothing to do with a hoorah for the winter holidays. Most of it had to do with the sleepless night she'd had and the grumpy mood she'd awakened in that morning. Griffin had haunted her dreams. It was definitely him and not his brother. Griffin had hair in her dreams. Graham never did. The few times she dreamed about Graham he'd been leaving the hotel room, closing the door behind him. When she dreamed about Griffin, she awoke in a sweat, aching for a man's arms around her.
       "I've got two bits to put into the pot," Clarice left her chair and marched up to the gazebo.
       Julie looked at the older woman and guessed by the way she was walking and the tilt of her chin that she must be the head she-coon of Saint Jo. Maybe of all Montague County. Hopefully, she'd be for the idea and not against it.
       Mamie stepped aside and let her have the soap box.
       Clarice took control instantly with a dirty look toward Mamie. "I'm against this silly notion. We've had the Fourth of July festival for as long as I can remember and that's a long time. It brings in people and money but it also brings in riffraff and bad things. I'd be for canceling it in a heartbeat. I damn sure won't vote for any such tomfoolery around the