Sweet Vidalia Brand Read Free

for auction.”
    Her head came up, eyes lighting, her smile genuine. “You’re goin’ into the saloon business?”
    “Not like you, but yeah, that’s the plan.”
    “You’re gonna do well, Bobby,” she told him. “And I’m not ashamed to say, I’m gonna miss you.”
    “I’m gonna miss you too,” he told her. And he thought he meant it a whole lot more than she did.
    She held his eyes for a long time, and then she went behind the bar and refilled both their glasses.
     
    That had been twenty-some-odd years ago. And that whole time, he’d never been able to get past the notion that Vidalia Brand was The One. The only woman for him. And for some reason, he just wasn’t meant to have her. Not in this lifetime, anyway.
    Maybe next time around, he thought as he stood there looking up at the red and green and blue and white lights of the giant Christmas tree. If there was a next time. He wasn’t the sort of man who had any real convictions about what happened after you died. But he supposed he’d be finding out firsthand in short order. Any time now, according to his doctors.
    He sighed heavily, and his breath made a steam puff in the darkness. Then he got back into his pickup and turned it around, driving back toward the former feed store he’d bought at the far end of town. He had the entire thing draped in an exterminator’s tent, so the work going on inside would go unseen until he was ready to make it public day after tomorrow.
    He’d made a fortune taking over failing bars, saloons and nightclubs, recreating them into successful hot spots, and then selling them for massive profits. He’d become one of the richest men in Texas. He’d married, had three sons, and neglected them almost as much as John Brand had neglected his daughters. He’d divorced after fifteen years with a woman he had liked at first, disliked later on, but never loved. There was only one woman he’d ever really loved.
    It was only a month ago that he’d realized he wanted to leave something more behind than a portfolio stuffed with paper wealth. He wanted to leave his sons something real. Something of him. Something they could be proud of. And he wanted it to be in Big Falls Oklahoma, where he’d been a young man with his entire future ahead of him, who didn’t yet know that he’d never be happier than he was right then. Richer. More successful. Busier. But never happier.
    Seeing Vidalia again had been a bonus to coming back here. But it hadn’t been his only reason. He intended to breathe his last in Big Falls, the closest thing to a hometown he’d ever had.
    But his main reason for coming back here now was because he wanted to spend one more Christmas in Big Falls. Christmases had been magical here. Vidalia and her little girls always made them so special, even when he’d just been a lonely drifter handyman with no family to call his own. Three Christmases, he’d been invited to share in the holiday meal with the Brands. Three Christmases when John Brand had seen fit to be elsewhere. Even poor, Vidalia had given her girls holidays to remember. Meaningful, sparkling, magical holidays full of love and laughter.
    He wanted his boys to experience a holiday like those ones he remembered, just once. He’d been too busy getting rich to give them any of those. And according to his doctors, he should just about have enough time left to make that happen.

 
    Chapter Two
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    An hour later, after closing time, Vidalia stood in the cold rain, looking across Main Street at what used to be Milner Feed & Grain. The big building was wearing an “I’m being exterminated” sort of disguise. Maybe it really was an exterminator’s tent covering the entire place. Vidalia wouldn’t know, having never seen one. Bugs only tended to be a problem in big cities, where there wasn’t room for them to live outdoors where they belonged. She’d seen big city life. Never lived it. If she had, she figured she’d have most likely run screaming