Home at Chestnut Creek

by Laura Drake

  She took his hand and tugged at it. “I don’t believe you.”

  “Don’t say you wasn’t warned.” He took another sip of his beer and let her lead him out onto the dance floor.

  She melted into his arms as the jukebox played “Rest Your Love on Me.”

  She rose on her toes and breathed into his ear. “Like the words of the song says, I’d like to put my worries in your pocket and rest my love on you all night. I see some sadness in those green eyes, cowboy. Let me make you happy tonight.”

  “I bet you tell all the old ugly cowboys that,” he said.

  “Darlin’, whoever told you that you are ugly has shit for brains.” She laughed. “You didn’t tell me your name.”

  “Blake Dawson.”

  “Blake and Kayla. Goes together real good, at least for one night.”

  A tall brunette moved into Kayla’s place and looped her arms around his neck when that song ended and Conway started singing “House on Old Lonesome Road.”

  “It’s my birthday and my friends dared me to come over and dance with you,” she whispered. “I have a boyfriend at home.”

  He twirled her out and brought her back to him and even dipped her at the end of the dance. “Happy birthday, darlin’. Your boyfriend is one lucky feller.”

  Blake made his way to the men’s room where he checked his reflection in the mirror. It was the same face that he shaved every morning, same dark hair, and same green eyes, so why in the hell wasn’t he having a good time. He felt his forehead. No fever so he wasn’t sick.

  Singing, “I May Never Get to Heaven,” Conway’s voice came through the speaker above his head. The lyrics said that he might never get to heaven but he once came mighty close. Blake shut his eyes and visualized Allie lying next to him on the mattress/bed. Could that have really only been a few hours ago? It seemed like nothing more than a dream or a little taste of what Conway was singing about. Any of the women he’d met that evening would give him a good time, but all he wanted was to go home to Allie.

  “Where you been?” Deke motioned him to the end of the bar and pointed at the empty seat on the other side of Toby when he returned to the bar. “Me and Toby been havin’ us a good time.”

  Six weeks ago, he would have been in heaven, but that night, even with the toe-stomping line dancing, he felt as out of place as a hooker on the front row of a tent revival. Then of all things that Mama Fate could throw at him, Blake Shelton started singing “Home.”

  Blake fished his phone out of his back pocket even though it hadn’t vibrated or rang. “Excuse me. I have to take this, so I’ll step outside.”

  He sucked in the cold, clean night air and leaned against the porch post. The lyrics of the song said that he felt like he was living someone else’s life, that another day had come and gone and he wanted to go home. He talked about being surrounded by a million people and yet he felt all alone.

  What in the hell was wrong with him? He should be in there flirting with all the women, making passes at the ones who were across the room with another cowboy, and picking out the three he would choose among. The lucky one would go home with him. He didn’t usually run from women and yet there he was thinking of going home without even a telephone number.

  And why did every damn song remind him of Allie in some way?

  Another song started but the last one about going home was stuck in his mind so strongly that he couldn’t hear anything else. He wanted to be home with Shooter, maybe working alongside Allie. Hell, pulling nails out of the ceiling made him happier than he was right now.

  “Shit,” he muttered. “I’ve turned into the designated driver.”

  Toby poked his head out the door and asked, “Something wrong? The redhead said you got an important call.”

  “Nothing’s wrong.” He paused. “Actually, everything’s wrong. Think you could catch a ride home with Deke? I’m just gonna head home,” Blake said.

  “Sure thing. I know he won’t mind. We might even leave here and go find a quieter place with Lisa and Laney,” Toby said.

  “Have fun,” Blake said. “See you at home. Keep in mind that you’re sleeping on the couch.”

  “I don’t mind stackin’.” Toby laughed.

  It wasn’t fair.

  Lizzy had flat out sabotaged Allie and she was miserable as hell sitting in the living room watching a damn old boring movie with Grady and Mitch, but there wasn’t anything she could do to get out of it. And it was Friday night! She could be at Frankie’s with Deke and Blake like last week.

  As luck would have it, Granny had even turned in early and wasn’t wandering through the room. She’d tried to get her mother to stick around and watch the movie with them but oh, no, she went to bed with a book. So now Allie was stuck on the sofa with Grady’s arm around her.

  She made an excuse to go to the bathroom and slid down the back of the door, sitting on the floor with her knees up and her face buried in her hands. Three hours earlier she’d been sleeping in Blake’s arms with the most beautiful afterglow in the whole damn world surrounding them.

  “You okay in there?” Lizzy asked from the other side of the door.

  “No, I think I’m getting that bug you had,” Allie said.

  “Well, crap! And you and Grady were having such a good time. I guess you’d best go on up to your room so you don’t give it to him and Mitch,” Lizzy said. “I should’ve known you were catchin’ it when you came in from the Lucky Penny with scarlet cheeks. I’ll tell Grady. He’ll be disappointed.”

  “Sorry,” Allie lied.

  She waited to stand up and sneak up the stairs to her room until she could hear the drone of Lizzy’s voice in the living room. Once inside her room she couldn’t sit still. Pacing from one side to the other, she wondered what Blake was doing right then. Were he and Toby watching some old western movie and drinking beer? Was Shooter as glad to see Toby as he was to see her nearly every day lately? Or were they all three out with a flashlight showing Toby all the work that Blake had gotten done the past few weeks?

  She turned on the radio to the classic country music station and curled up in the old overstuffed rocking chair in the corner, slinging her legs over the arm. Granny had rocked her to sleep in this same chair when she was a little girl and it always brought her comfort to sit in it, but not that night. She went to the window, pulled back the curtain, and looked outside and then picked up a book from her nightstand. It didn’t interest her so she put it back.

  The DJ announced that the next hour would be a tribute to Alan Jackson and if anyone had requests to call in. Then he started playing, “Small Town Southern Man.”

  She couldn’t listen to the song because it was too sad in light of how badly she wanted Blake Dawson to be that small-town Southern man who’d be content with a wife and small-town living. She turned the radio off and hit the POWER button on the television remote.

  “Well, shit!” she mumbled as Alan Jackson’s video for the same song showed up on CMT. “Evidently, I’m supposed to listen to this.”

  Tears rolled down her cheeks as she watched the video from beginning to end. She wanted what those two people had in the video portraying their lives from the time they danced together the first time until the day that death came calling for the small-town Southern man.

  She wondered if Blake Dawson could ever be tamed into a man who’d only love one woman. And if he could, would she ever trust him? It seemed as if everywhere she looked these days, someone was cheating on the person they’d vowed to love forever.

  The next video was Blake Shelton’s “Goodbye Time.” Every single word scared the crap out of her. She had to see Blake tomorrow, to explain that the sex they’d had could never happen again because she couldn’t bear to spend years with him only to wake up one day and have him tell her that the feeling was gone.

  Someday when she was an old woman with gray hair, sitting on the porch and watching the seasons come and go, she would remember this beautiful day when a man made her experience
that wonderful thing called afterglow. She’d smile and hold it close to her heart and be grateful that it was untarnished and beautiful.

  She fell asleep in the chair as Miranda Lambert sang, “The House That Built Me.” Her last thought as her eyes drooped was that Audrey’s Place had built her and it was where she belonged…forever.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Blake awoke to the sounds of giggling women in the living room on Saturday morning. Two weeks ago he hadn’t even known Allie Logan and he’d been dreaming of her when the sound of women awoke him. He reached for her in that drowsy moment before sweet dreams become cold reality. All he got was a handful of pillow.

  The laughing turned into conversation and he heard his brother’s name and then Deke’s mentioned. Surely they hadn’t brought those two sisters both back to the Lucky Penny.

  He sat up so quickly that the room did a couple of spins before it came to a stop. “Dammit! I didn’t drink that much.” He reached for his jeans and tugged them up over his naked body.

  Two women were in the living room giggling about how much fun they’d had the night before. Toby was singing in the bathroom—an old tune called “I Always Get Lucky with You” at the top of his lungs—off key and out of tune but with the gusto of a drunken cowboy. He raised his hand to knock on the door and Toby slung it open. Wearing nothing but a towel around his waist and a smile, he winked at Blake, stood to one side, and motioned him inside.

  “You missed a damn good time,” he whispered.

  “It sounds like it.” Blake took a long time washing his hands and combing back his dark hair, hoping the whole time that the women would be gone when he finally went to the living room.

  No such luck.

  The aroma of coffee, frying bacon, and sausage floated down the hallway and with it came feminine voices. Toby was making his famous morning-after breakfast for the ladies. Blake stopped by his room long enough to pull an oatmeal-colored thermal shirt over his head and put on a pair of thick socks. He was hungry and Toby made a mean skillet of sausage gravy, and his biscuits were every bit as light as his granny’s.

  “Where’s Deke?” he asked as he headed for the coffeepot.

  Laney pressed her body against his side. “Too weak to crawl out of bed. We could take our breakfast to your bedroom.”

  “I’m sorry I forgot y’all’s name.” Blake yawned.

  Laney laid a hand over her heart and then wiped at an imaginary tear. “Well, if that ain’t a slap right in the face.”

  The other one patted him on the shoulder. “I’m Lisa, darlin’, and this one who brought Deke to his knees last night is my sister, Laney. But now that Deke’s out of commission for a while…” She raised an eyebrow suggestively.

  “Thanks, but no thanks. I’m only here for the morning-after food,” he answered.

  “I told you.” Toby grinned. “He’s got bit by the love bug.”

  “I betcha a little lust bug could knock that shit out of your head, darlin’.” Laney ran a hand down his back and squeezed his butt cheek firmly. “Well, I do believe this cowboy is going commando this morning. I don’t feel anything but jeans and good tight ass.”

  Blake stepped away from her, filled a cup with steaming hot coffee, and sat down at the end of the table. “Like I said, no thanks, Miz Laney.”

  “Well, I know when I’m defeated but if you ever change your mind, my number is on that old calendar over there.”

  A loud clap of thunder awoke Allie with a start. She grabbed a pillow and crammed it over her head, but the next lightning flash only heralded a rolling thunder that sounded as if it was dumping a load of potatoes on top of Audrey’s Place. Her phone rang right at the end of the noise. She pushed back the covers and threw the pillow in the direction of the rocking chair.

  “Why in the hell are you calling me?” Allie growled into the phone.

  “Good morning, sunshine.” Lizzy laughed. “Breakfast is ready and I don’t want to eat alone and I didn’t want to come back upstairs. Mama and Granny have already left for the store. Crawl out and come on down here. I made crunchy French toast.”

  Allie’s stomach growled. “I’m on the way.”

  The sun peeked from behind a bank of dark, fast-moving clouds, sending a few rays through the glass in the front door. Allie stopped long enough to stretch and feel the warmth on the foyer floor against her bare feet.

  Lizzy stuck her head out of the kitchen. “Your toast is getting cold while you play in the sun. Weatherman says we’ve got more bad weather on the way later this afternoon. Be glad you are at least working inside over there at that abominable place.”

  So much for hoping that Lizzy was ready to bury the hatchet. She had an agenda up her sleeve, and that was the reason she’d made Allie’s favorite food. Suddenly, her favorite breakfast didn’t sound so good after all.

  Lizzy did give her time to sit down and at least get the first bite in her mouth before she pulled out a chair across the table from her, sucked up enough air to deliver a Sunday-morning sermon, and started talking. “I knew you weren’t sick. You flat out lied to get out of spending time with Grady. And all for nothing because I’ve already heard the gossip this morning, and your little Lucky Penny bubble is about to bust wide open.”

  “What in the devil are you talking about?” Allie asked.

  “Blake’s brother arrived last night and the two of them and Deke went bar hopping up near Wichita Falls. Deke brought a tall blond hussy home with him. I did have such hopes for him turning his life around when he started coming to church pretty regular, but now that the infamous wild Dawson has become his new best friend, I swear, he’s on a joy ride straight to hell,” Lizzy said.

  “Are we being judgmental this morning?” Allie was sure glad the gossips hadn’t been hiding outside the window when she and Blake had been tangled up in his sheets.

  “I’m stating pure facts and I’m tellin’ you that…”

  “What if I told you I spent yesterday afternoon having hot pig sex with Blake Dawson?” Allie asked.

  Lizzy slapped the table hard enough that her coffee sloshed out. “Now look what you made me do. Sometimes, you make me so mad I could shake you, Alora Raine.”

  Allie shrugged. “It’s a sister thing or maybe it’s a middle-child thing. Do you think maybe you should see a therapist for your control issues?”

  Lizzy jumped to her feet and grabbed a fistful of paper towels. “It’s not a middle-child thing. Fiona doesn’t make me as mad as you do. There’s no way you really slept with Blake Dawson. One, you’re too smart to do something that crazy, and two, he’s a one-night-stand kind of guy. You’re not wild enough to be his type.”

  “Deke says the same thing, so I guess if Lucifer’s protégé and God’s right arm say it’s so, then it must be true.” She continued eating her breakfast but down deep she wondered if Toby and Blake had brought home women from the bar, too.

  “Go on and ruin your life again,” Lizzy huffed. “I’m trying to warn you, but I can only be the watchman. I can sit in the tower and tell you what I see coming, but I can’t make you steer clear of it.”

  Allie picked up her empty plate and headed to the sink with it. “Well, sister, you enjoy the view from your tower. I’m heading over to that abominable place to paint. See you at supper.”

  Allie parked beside a truck but didn’t pay a lot of attention to it, figuring it was Toby’s. A streak of lightning so close that the air crackled sent her running to the porch. She slipped inside the front door to the sounds of people talking in the kitchen. She quickly removed her yellow slicker, hung it on the coatrack, and replaced her rubber boots with her work boots.

  Shooter hopped off the sofa. Tangled sheets and a blanket gave testimony that Toby hadn’t gone back to Muenster early that morning and was one of the voices in the kitchen. She thought that she recognized the other voice as Deke’s. She didn’t really care how much testosterone was sitting around the table; she only wanted a cup of hot coffee to wrap her hands aroun
d before she started to work in Blake’s bedroom. She intended to have the walls and trim painted today. The doors would have to wait until Monday, but by the middle of next week her goal was to have that room completely done and the living room and hall ceilings ready to texture. Then she and Blake would really have something to celebrate.

  Her line of thinking stopped abruptly when she walked into the kitchen and saw the man at the stove had a woman draped around him like a snake, one hand on his butt, the other pressed against his chest as she kissed him.

  Allie whipped around, feeling a blush burning her cheeks, only to see Blake sitting at the table with another blonde who looked almost identical to the one plastered against the man she could only assume was Blake’s brother, Toby. She risked another quick glance and saw that Toby had the same face shape, hair color, and smile as Blake, but his eyes were blue and he had a faint white scar across one cheek.

  “Where’s Deke?” she asked, her brows furrowing into a single line.

  “At home, I guess.” Blake quickly pushed back his chair and stood up. “Allie, I didn’t know you were coming to work today.”

  “Evidently not,” she said. “I’ll get a cup of coffee and go on to the bedroom to work. Y’all don’t let me interrupt.”

  Her work boots sounded like shotgun blasts with every step as she crossed the kitchen, poured a cup of coffee, and carried it down the hallway. She shut Blake’s bedroom door behind her and sat down on the dirty carpet with a thud, hot coffee sloshing out. Her hands shook so badly that she finally set the cup down and put her head in her hands.

  “Allie? Can I come in please? We need to talk.” Blake said from the other side of the door.

  “It’s your house,” she said.

  He slipped into the room, shut the door behind him, and sat down in front of her, keeping a foot of space between them. Before he could say a word, another knock on the door startled both of them. “Hey, is Walter hiding in there? I’ve got a sweet little lady out here hunting for him. I told her we don’t have a Walter here, but she doesn’t believe me.”