West Texas Nights

by Sherryl Woods

  “Then isn’t it better that one of you is exercising some restraint?”

  She considered Laurie’s reasoning. “Okay, yes, but I really hate it when you’re right,” she grumbled.

  Laurie chuckled. “I’m sure. Harlan Patrick complains about it, too.”

  Val reached for one of the homemade cinnamon buns that the housekeeper at White Pines had brought down still warm from the oven. It was scant consolation for reining in her longing to make some significant progress with Slade, but it would do. All that sugar was guaranteed to give her a rush.

  “Do you have any real work for me to do today?” she asked Laurie hopefully. She desperately needed something to occupy her mind, to keep it off of Slade.

  “Sorry, I can’t help you,” Laurie said without genuine regret. “We’re on vacation, remember? If hanging around here is getting to you, you could always take a trip. Maybe some time away would help you to put things in perspective. Go on up to Nashville and go out with some of those men who are always hanging around when we’re in town.”

  Val considered the idea and dismissed it. Being idle at White Pines with Slade nearby was still a vast improvement over anything else she could think of to do, even if she did spend every day all hot and bothered with no relief in sight. As for the men who’d pursued her over the years in Nashville, not a one fascinated her as Slade did.

  “Maybe I’ll just go and see what Annie’s up to.”

  “I suspect you’re going to have to find a playmate your own age now,” Laurie teased. “Your party accomplished exactly what you set out for it to do. Annie’s made new friends.”

  “Maybe I’ll just round up a whole bunch of them and take them to a movie in Garden City,” she said, recognizing that Laurie was probably right again.

  “Or you could call Nick and see if he has work for you to do. You know my agent—he never takes a vacation.”

  “I’d rather go to a movie,” Val said. Maybe, if she was very clever about how she went about it, she could get Slade to come along.

  As she stood up to leave, Laurie shot her a knowing look. “I imagine you’ll find Slade in the new corral working with that stallion he and Harlan Patrick just bought.”

  “I never said anything about going to look for Slade.”

  “Didn’t have to,” Laurie said. “You’re very predictable. Have been ever since you laid eyes on him.”

  Val paused thoughtfully. “Maybe that’s my problem. Maybe I’m too predictable.”

  “Oh, no,” Laurie said, regarding her worriedly. “I don’t like that gleam in your eyes. What are you up to, Val?”

  “Just coming up with a new plan,” she said innocently. “Nothing drastic. I won’t embarrass you.”

  Laurie waved off that concern. “You couldn’t embarrass me if you tried. I just don’t want to see you get hurt.”

  “Hey, no risk, no glory,” she said blithely, and went in search of Annie.

  Contrary to her original scheme, she did not try to manipulate things so that Slade would go along with her to chaperone a bunch of kids at the movies. In fact, she avoided him altogether, leaving it to Annie to get his permission for the outing.

  When Annie mentioned that her diving lesson had been scheduled for the next day, Val volunteered to drive her. Afterward, they went out for the pizza Annie never tired of. Back at the ranch, Val dropped Annie off in front of her house, then drove on to Laurie’s.

  That was the pattern they fell into for the next couple of weeks. She rarely caught more than a glimpse of Slade. She gave him a casual wave and moved on, hoping that it was driving him to distraction the same way it was her.

  At the end of the second week, after one of her diving lessons, Annie said, “Dad wants me home for dinner tonight.” She wrinkled her nose when she said it.

  Val tried not to let her disappointment show. “Oh? Does he have something special planned?”

  “No. He says I’m taking advantage of you. He says he is perfectly capable of feeding me,” she said, probably quoting him verbatim.

  Val barely resisted the urge to smile. “I’m sure he is.”

  “That’s what you think,” Annie said with obvious disgust. “His idea of food is a frozen dinner he’s nuked beyond recognition. He went shopping the other day and came home with five different versions of macaroni and cheese and six different versions of fried chicken and mashed potatoes. They all taste like burned rubber when he’s done.”

  It was hardly news that Slade couldn’t cook. He’d admitted as much himself. Val just hadn’t realized precisely how bad he was.

  Fortunately, she could offer a solution. She loved to cook, though she rarely had an opportunity when Laurie was on the road and going from hotel to hotel. Even here Val never had a chance to spend time in the kitchen. Laurie enjoyed showing off her domestic skills for her new husband, and Val was always invited along. Even when she begged off, it was only to eat in town or have a sandwich in her room.

  She considered the best way to handle this. She doubted Slade would respond to any hints she offered about teaching him to cook, but Annie was likely to be a more than willing student. She was clearly sick to death of frozen dinners.

  “I could help out,” she suggested carefully.

  Annie’s expression brightened. “Would you? I mean, Daddy would probably say no,” she said, echoing Val’s own assessment. “But maybe he wouldn’t have to find out about it. Not at first, anyway.”

  “We can’t lie to your father,” Val objected, though probably not as strenuously as she should have.

  “It wouldn’t be lying. Not really,” Annie insisted. “You could just come over in the afternoon and give me cooking lessons. By the time he gets home, dinner will be on the table. He won’t know I didn’t do it all myself.”

  “Honey, I think he’ll suspect that something’s going on. It’s not like you can suddenly start fixing perfect pot roast overnight.”

  “I’ll buy a cookbook and tell him I’m learning a new recipe every day. If you can read, you can cook, right? Once he tastes something that actually has real flavor to it, he won’t complain,” Annie said persuasively. “Please.”

  Val debated the wisdom of allowing Annie to deceive her father, of actually being a party to that deception. She weighed that against the old adage that the way to a man’s heart was through his stomach.

  “We’ll try it tomorrow and see how it goes,” she said finally. “If your father gets the least bit suspicious, you tell him the truth. You do not lie to him. Understood?”

  Annie nodded eagerly. “Can we really do pot roast? Grandma made awesome pot roast. I really miss it.”

  “I’ll pick up the ingredients in town in the morning. I’ll meet you at your house at two. Okay?”

  “Perfect. Daddy never gets home before five-thirty or six. Is that long enough?”

  “Perfect,” Val agreed. Whether he knew it or not, Slade was about to be treated to the way his life could be if he’d just wake up and allow her into it.

  * * *

  Slade smelled the aroma of pot roast wafting from his house before he got within ten feet of it. His mouth watered. His suspicions kicked in, right along with a stirring of anticipation he didn’t like one bit.

  But when he walked inside, he found Annie at the stove lifting the lid on a huge pot. Half expecting to find Val, he was torn between disappointment and relief. She’d been avoiding him lately and he hadn’t been nearly as grateful as he should have been. For a minute when he’d sniffed that pot roast, he’d been hoping that she was the one responsible. Maybe the housekeeper at White Pines had sent it down.

  “What’s that?” he asked, venturing close.

  “Pot roast,” Annie said proudly. “Doesn’t it smell awesome?”

  His gaze narrowed. “Who made it?”

  “I did.” She gestured toward a book that lay open
on the counter. “It wasn’t so hard. I just followed the directions.”

  He stepped up to the stove and peered into the pot. A roast indeed had been cooked to perfection. It was surrounded by carrots, onions and little potatoes, all perfectly done and seasoned with herbs.

  “You did this?”

  She nodded. “Are you hungry?”

  “Starved,” he admitted, deciding he’d pursue the issue of Annie’s cooking after he’d had a chance to taste dinner. If it tasted half as good as it smelled, he doubted he’d have the heart to scold her.

  “You wash up and I’ll get it on the table,” she said.

  He noticed she had already set the small oak table with real dishes and place mats. She’d even plunked a vase of wildflowers in the middle. His little tomboy turning domestic? He wasn’t buying it for a minute. Then again, maybe she was as sick of those frozen meals as he was. Maybe she’d been desperate for something edible. He wouldn’t put it past her to take matters into her own hands. She was a lot like Val in that.

  He took a quick shower, pulled on clean jeans and a T-shirt, then settled at the table. A steaming plate of food awaited him. Annie watched him expectantly. He cut a bite of the pot roast and tasted it. The meat almost melted in his mouth. It was even better than his mother’s, and it was her specialty.

  “Well?” Annie demanded eagerly. “How is it?”

  “Better than Grandma’s,” he said candidly.

  Her face lit up. “Really?”

  “Taste it and see.”

  She took a bite, then beamed. “Oh, wow! I did it. I really did it.”

  After that, Slade didn’t have the heart to question whether she’d done it entirely on her own. She was too darn pleased with herself. He told himself that was the only reason he let it pass.

  The next night, when he found real southern fried chicken on the table, along with genuine mashed potatoes and gravy, he didn’t want to spoil her obvious pleasure by getting into an argument.

  He kept quiet the next night, too, when he found homemade spaghetti waiting for him, accompanied by a zesty garlic bread and a fresh green salad.

  When the desserts started turning up, he could no longer ignore his suspicions. He’d long since detected Val’s hand in the increasingly elaborate meals, but his stomach had won out over his honor.

  “The cake’s real good, honey,” he said as he savored the rich, moist chocolate with a frosting that might as well have been fudge, it was so thick.

  “I know chocolate’s your favorite. I told...” She stopped herself and a guilty flush climbed into her cheeks.

  “Who’d you tell?” he demanded, seizing the opening.

  “Val,” she confessed in a whisper.

  “Did she make the cake?”

  “No,” Annie said adamantly. “I did.”

  He leveled a gaze straight at her and waited.

  “She just told me how,” she said finally.

  “And the rest? Did she help with all of it?”

  “She wanted to,” Annie said with a defiant lift of her chin. “It was her idea.”

  “And whose idea was it not to tell me?”

  “Mine.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I figured you’d get mad. You said I was taking advantage of her, even though I knew it wasn’t true. She likes to help.”

  Slade sighed. “I’m sure she does, Annie, but it’s more complicated than that.”

  “How?”

  “Val and I are just friends,” he repeated for the hundredth time. “It’s not right to take advantage of a friend.”

  “But she said—”

  “I don’t care what she said,” Slade said, his voice climbing. “This is going to stop.”

  “We’ll starve to death,” Annie muttered.

  “We are not going to starve,” he snapped in frustration. “There’s nothing wrong with eating frozen dinners. Millions of people do.”

  “It’s not the same as real food,” Annie protested. “Especially after you’ve ruined it, anyway.”

  “Then we’ll go into town to eat.”

  She jumped up then, practically quivering with outrage. “You do what you want. I’m going to live with Val.”

  She flew out the door before he could think to stop her. “Well, hell,” he muttered, staring after her.

  He waited a few minutes until his temper settled down, then went to look for her. He found her on the porch at Harlan Patrick’s, sobbing in Val’s arms. Val regarded him helplessly.

  “What is this about?” she mouthed silently.

  Slade sighed. “Dinner,” he mouthed back.

  Val’s eyes filled with understanding. She stepped back and clasped Annie’s shoulders, as she gazed into her eyes. “Why don’t you take a walk down by the creek? I always feel better when I go there.”

  “What are you going to do?” she asked, not once glancing toward Slade.

  “Your father and I are going to have a talk.”

  Annie turned toward him, then studied them both worriedly. “You’re not going to fight, are you?”

  “No,” Slade said.

  Val regarded him ruefully. “We might,” she contradicted. “But we’ll work it out, because that is what grown-ups do.”

  He supposed the comment was meant to effectively put him in his place. It succeeded.

  He waited until after Annie had gone before he stepped onto the porch himself. He chose the swing and set it to swaying as Val moved into a rocking chair.

  “I suppose I ought to start by thanking you for all the meals,” he said stiffly.

  She nodded. “That would be a good place to start.”

  “You shouldn’t have, though.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because—”

  “Because you are too stiff-necked to accept help when it’s offered?”

  “Now wait a minute,” he protested.

  “Because you’re scared I’m going to worm my way into your life?”

  “Val—”

  “Because you’d rather eat sawdust than something I enjoyed fixing for you?”

  He moved quickly, scooping her out of the chair and clamping his mouth over hers before she could wind up and hit him with another accusation. The taste of her exploded inside him. The feel of her in his arms shattered the last of his restraint.

  He gulped for air, then went back for more, sure that she was more potent than any female who’d ever crossed his path before. He’d never had a kiss shoot him straight to the moon. He’d never had the soft moan of a willing female fill him with such tenderness.

  “Bad idea,” he murmured, stepping away.

  “No,” she said, wrapping her arms around his neck and dragging him back.

  With that single word, she dismissed all of his objections, all of his sound, rational thoughts and honorable intentions. With her mouth locked to his, he couldn’t think at all, could barely even stand.

  “Sweet heaven,” he murmured, when she finally paused for breath.

  “I can’t believe I just did that,” she whispered, her cheeks flaming. “I’m so sorry. I don’t know what came over me. You’ve made it clear this wasn’t what you wanted, and then you kissed me, and I guess I just went a little nuts. Sorry.”

  Smiling, he touched a finger to her lips. “Don’t be. It was a long time coming. It was bound to happen.”

  “I thought you swore it would never happen.”

  “That was before you started chattering nonsense and I couldn’t think of any other way to shut you up.”

  “It was effective, I’ll give you that.” She tilted her head and studied him. “What now?”

  “Now we sit down and have a rational discussion about why it is all wrong for you to go on cooking for me.”

  She looked as if he’d slapped her.
“No,” she said. “That is precisely what we do not do. I will not have that conversation with you. Not tonight.”

  “Val—”

  “I won’t.”

  “We have to talk about it.”

  “Not tonight,” she all but shouted.

  “Okay,” he soothed. “What do you want to talk about?”

  A faint smile touched her lips. “I don’t want to talk at all.”

  The subtly sensuous implications rocked him all over again. “Anything else is not an option,” he said, his voice ragged. He took a few steps away from her. He grabbed the porch railing and stared out into the gathering darkness. “Did Annie tell you she intended to move in with you?”

  “What?”

  He heard the incredulous note in her voice and smiled. “She thinks she’ll starve if I refuse to let you go on cooking for us.”

  “Could be she’s right,” Val said. “But I’ll talk to her. I’m sure deep down she knows she can’t live with me.”

  He felt her slip up to the railing beside him, standing just close enough to tantalize him with that flowery scent.

  “Slade?”

  “Yes.”

  “Other than your stubborn pride, why is it so wrong for me to help out?”

  “It’s not wrong,” he said, raking his hand through his hair in a gesture of frustration. “It’s just...” He couldn’t come up with a better word.

  “You’re not taking advantage of me. Laurie’s on vacation. That means I have very little to do. I’m bored. I love to cook. It seems to me it works out well all the way around.”

  She sounded so quietly reasonable, so sincere. He felt like a heel for robbing her of a chance to do something she enjoyed. “I’ll pay you, then.”

  “Don’t insult me.”

  He winced at the sharp tone. “Okay, then, I pay for the groceries, all of them, going back to when this started.”

  “That’s fair enough.”

  “And you start sharing the meals with us.”

  Her head snapped around at that. “Are you serious?”

  “Yes,” he said, smiling at her shock.

  “Won’t that make you crazy?”

  “Yes,” he said. “But not a minute passes that you don’t make me crazy, so I might as well get the pleasure of a good meal and some adult conversation out of it.” He tucked a finger under her chin and forced her to face him. “That’s it, though. Food and conversation.”