Chapter 13

I was still awake after the girls fell asleep. Somehow, I felt like we belonged together like this tonight ... and tomorrow ... and every day after that.

I realized that for the first time since I learned that her family had moved away, I felt complete. None of my girlfriends in college, not even Holly or later Jacqueline, made me feel complete like I did right now.

I must have fallen asleep because I woke up with a head on each shoulder. The head on my right shoulder had blonde hair so it must be Chloe. The dark hair on my left shoulder would be Bitsy. I realized that I should ask if she preferred me to call her Jan like Chloe did. I also realized that the three of us might be headed for a serious relationship. Part of me loved the idea, but another part was worried.

Making a long-term relationship work between two people requires a lot of effort on both parts. I had no idea how much more effort a three-way relationship would require. In general, Chloe and I hit it off, but neither of us really knew much about the other. I also wondered how much Jan might have changed in the last five years.

My mind seemed to be in overdrive as I thought about the pros and cons. There was so much to learn about each other and so little time to learn it before I had to leave. As much as I wanted to stay with the girls and get to know them better, I knew that I had to get back to oversee things. It wasn’t fair to dump everything on Carlos and Ramón, especially transferring all the equipment and livestock to Mississippi.

As good as it felt lying between the two women, I had to get up. I needed to start writing things down since my mind was churning out questions faster than I could concentrate on them and answer them. I don’t know how, but I managed to slip out from between the two women without waking them. Being a farm boy, I was used to going to sleep early and getting up just as early, just one of several things Jacqueline used to complain about.

Looking at my clothes, I pulled my underwear and pants on. I grabbed the pen and small notebook I always carried in the pocket of my sport coat and sat at the kitchen table in the dinky kitchen. I had left my coat in the bedroom so Jan would know I was still here if she woke up to find me no longer in bed.

When Jan came looking for me it was almost 5 a.m. “Everything okay?” she asked with a touch of concern in her voice.

“Everything is fine,” I assured her. “I don’t want to lose you again so I decided last night to do everything I could to make the relationship between the three of us work. I realized how much we had to learn about each other and how little time we had before I need to go back home. I started writing questions down, hoping that it would help us learn about each other faster. I know we don’t have time to cover everything before I have to leave, yet I don’t want to spend even one more night without you in my arms.”

“That goes double for me,” she sighed as she sat across my lap and hugged me. “If it came to it, I’d choose you, but I hope it doesn’t come to that,” she said emotionally.

“That’s some serious stuff,” she commented after reading the first few questions. “How long have you been awake?” she asked when she counted and saw that I had a dozen two-inch by four-inch pages of questions.

“I woke up about 2:00 and while I hated getting out of bed, my mind wouldn’t stop coming up with questions and I wanted to write down as many as I could remember,” I replied.

Jan was flipping through the sheets, reading the questions. “I’m not even sure I know the answer to some of these,” she mused aloud.

“I’m not sure I know the answer to a couple, but I still think we need to discuss them,” I replied.

“Why do some of these questions have an asterisk?” she asked.

“I figured those questions had information that shouldn’t be discussed unless we got through the others and were still planning to stay together.”

“Credit score, amount of personal debt, yeah, I agree we shouldn’t discuss those unless we’re sure that we’re serious,” Jan agreed.

She sat in my lap, and we started at the top of the list and worked our way down. We were halfway through when Chloe dragged into the room. “Is this a private party?” she asked. Jan held her arms open inviting Chloe to join us.

“Jim couldn’t sleep. He thinks we need to discuss a bunch of things before we go further, so he started on a list of things he felt we should discuss with each other. When I found that he was awake. I stayed up with him. You’re off today, aren’t you?” Jan asked Chloe.

When Chloe nodded, Jan commented, “I think I’ll call Dana and see if she’ll change days off with me so I can take off today, too. She owes me for all the times I switched shifts with her. That way, the three of us can spend the day discussing these questions. I’d rather do it in person than over the phone or via email and Jim has to leave in a day or two.”

We started at the top of the list again. It went faster this time because Jan and I had already thought through most of the first half of the questions. Tara and Karen were excited to find me still here when they woke up. A quick call to Janie secured an eager babysitter for the two girls. She said that Mom insisted that all five of us come to dinner tonight.

My next phone call was to the developer who bought Kozlov’s land from me. When I explained what I wanted to do, he gave me his blessing. After dropping the two little girls off at my parents’ house, I drove to Jan’s old home. We toured the important spots: the front porch where we originally met, the barn where we had shared our first kiss, and the swimming hole at the creek where we were intimate for the first time.

We continued discussing the questions as we walked, adding a few more as our discussions brought up new things. By mid-afternoon, we were down to the final few questions. Not surprisingly, both of the girls were embarrassed by their credit scores, and were heavily in debt. Taking a deep breath to calm myself, I told them about my finances, about paying cash for Reynolds Ranch, about how much I cleared selling most of it to the developer, how much the land I kept was worth, and about the profit I had made selling the land here to the developer.

Chloe just stared at me incredulously. Jan had a contemplative look. “Jim,” she said cautiously, “I know how much you hated it when your mom always brought it up, but I think I have to agree with her; you have inherited the luck,” she said to me soberly. “And I knew you got some money from Senator Ludmill, but the amount was never revealed. I figured that you’d spent all of it getting yourself established.”

“I’ve wondered about the Lucky Jim thing myself, but I don’t remember anything about one of his wives cheating on him, or about him getting a divorce,” I reminded her.

“True,” she agreed, “but you got rid of a wife who only cared about your money before she got hold of the money, and before there were any kids involved. It’s a much different time now. The divorce also got you involved in the Kozlov case and brought you back to me.”

I’d already thought of that and just shrugged in reply. I still had no idea if I had inherited the luck or not. For every incident indicating that I had, I could name another one that seemed to mock the idea.

We agreed to try our strange three-way relationship. Jan and Chloe called in and quit. Their boss was one of those who thought the girls who worked for him owed it to him to let him play touchy-feely with them. Chloe was the only one he left alone, and only because she’d had a massive screaming and crying attack the first time he tried it.

I also warned the girls about Marisa and Carlotta, my two bed warmers, being sure to emphasize that they had come to me.

“We’ll discuss them further after we meet them,” Chloe replied.

“But...” I started to protest. The look both girls gave me made me decide further protest might not be a prudent thing.

Beneath the huge, ancient cottonwood tree alongside the creek where Bitsy and I had made love for the first time, we consummated our new three-way relationship, barely making it to my parents’ house in time for dinner. While I explained our new relationship, my mom just grinned smugly at me.

“We heard about your land deal here, even though you tried to hide it,” she commented smugly, her grin growing. “You told us about selling your Hallston place to a developer for enough to buy several farms in Mississippi. Now you have two wives. Will you still try to deny your heritage?” she challenged playfully.

“I’m not trying to deny it. Until very recently, I felt it might be a coincidence. Whether or not I take after him, I just don’t want it thrown in my face all the time. I want to live my own life, not re-live someone else’s life, or be expected to live my life the way others think I should,” I explained.

My mom actually looked embarrassed. “I guess I have pestered you about it,” she admitted.

“Ya think?” Janie piped up sarcastically. Of everyone in the family, she was the only one who never mentioned it. “And don’t you go getting any crazy ideas, buster,” she playfully turned her wagging finger on me. Since she had started dating in high school, she always gravitated towards the brawny jocks that seemed to have an inverse correlation between how much they could bench press and their IQ. She teased me that the dumber they were, the easier they were to manipulate. I still couldn’t understand her actions towards me starting right before I left for college since they seemed to counter what she just said.

Even though I had played football, basketball, and baseball in high school, I graduated second in my class of 951 students, far too smart for Janie to be seriously interested in me. Anytime someone brought up Lucky Jim, she had quickly disabused them of any notion that she and I would ever be physically close like Lucky Jim and his sister had been. Still, I had to wonder about what happened starting right before I left for college.

Knowing our history, Jan laughed at Janie while poor Chloe looked around wondering what the joke was. I eventually explained. Chloe was surprised to learn that I was a direct descendent of Lucky Jim and was excited to hear that I might have inherited his luck. He was one of her favorite historical characters and she had written several essays and reports about him throughout school.

“I always wanted to meet a man who would spend such a vast fortune helping the people around him. He personally paid for the construction of his own city where his family, friends, and those he had helped could live safely,” she exclaimed excitedly.

I noticed Mom grinning again, jerking her thumb at me. “How many people live in your little town?” she asked me.

“It’s not a town, just a collection of mobile homes, manufactured homes, and motor homes where my employees live,” I protested.

“Almost a hundred families when we were there last fall,” Janie added.

“It’s not a town,” I protested again, setting everyone else to laughing.

After dinner, Janie insisted on coming with us when I took Chloe, Jan, and the two girls to town for ice cream. Instead of the city half an hour from the farm, “town” meant Bender’s Corners, the named crossroad where the main road met with the highway about ten minutes from the farm. The town consisted of a gas station with a mini market, an auto repair shop, and an insurance agent. The mini market had a machine where you could make your own soft-serve ice cream cones, although their current machine was a lot newer than the one that had been there when I was growing up. The new one had vanilla, chocolate and half-and-half.

Janie wanted to go with us so she could pump Jan and Chloe for more information. They had plenty of time to talk since Tara and Karen wouldn’t let me go. Each girl claimed a knee to sit on while eating their ice cream, much to the amusement of the three women. I was covered in dripped ice cream by the time they were done with their cones.

At my parents’ insistence, we stayed the night at their place. Tara and Karen bunked with Janie. The king-sized bed came in handy.

When we showered in the morning, I suddenly realized that I hadn’t even decided which of the houses I would live in. When I had toured the properties, I only gave the exterior of the houses a cursory glance. I knew that four of the homes were large, beautiful antebellum homes, and a fifth was a huge antebellum plantation home. The other three that I’d seen looked like they had been built since WWII.

After breakfast, the girls and I left for the city to close out their lives there. I bought fifty boxes of various sizes at the U-Haul store, stuffing them into the back of my pickup and tying them down securely.