“Everything is fine. He doesn’t look dead to me. Colleen decided to make dinner here tonight and surprise him. Come on over and have supper with us. You were the one who helped me make this decision and we’re naming the shop tonight. You should be here.”
“I’m wiped out tired. Thanks for the offer but I think I’ll pass for a long soak in that big old claw-foot tub.”
“Okay, then get your bath and when you get done, I’ll bring a plate across the road. There’s tons of food here and there’s no need for you to eat a sandwich or open a can of soup,” Gemma said.
“Thank you,” Austin said.
Disappointment could have been tattooed on her forehead or better yet, on her neck, right across the hickey that had gotten darker and darker as the day went by. She’d entertained all kinds of scenarios as she drove the tractor up and down the fields that day, plowing up the center lanes to cut out any weeds and keep the dirt soft. They all involved a bed with Rye in it and not a blessed one of them involved two sisters, two brothers, and a mother and father.
“I’ll give you an hour and then I’ll bring food,” Gemma said.
Austin shed clothes all the way down the hallway to the bathroom, where she sat down naked on the edge of the tub and poured bath salts into the water as it shot from the faucet. She barely heard her phone when it rang the second time. It was on the fifth and final ring before it went to voice mail when she flipped it open and said, “Hello.”
She could hear noise in the background before Rye said a word. Dewar said something and Raylen laughed.
“Rye?”
“Colleen decided to do a surprise dinner for the family at my house. I’m sorry. There was nothing I could do about it and I can’t get out of it. I saw you getting off the tractor and everyone is helping their plates right now. Can you take a fast shower and come on over?” he asked.
“I’m tired. I think I’ll pass.”
Chicken! Verline’s voice said from inside her head. You should get a shower, dress up all pretty, put on perfume, and walk over there. Kiss Rye right smack on the lips when you walk in the door and be sure to pull your hair back so that hickey shines. That’ll teach that girl a thing or two. I’m shocked that she’s being so tacky but not as much as I am at you for being a wimp.
“Ah, come on,” Rye said in his best “aw-shucks” voice.
“Come over and have a beer with me when they’ve all gone. By the way, Gemma already called and said she’d bring over a plate of food. What am I having?”
“Chicken parmigiana and apple pie,” Rye said. He’d rather be eating bologna sandwiches on the porch with Austin.
Colleen yelled across the kitchen, “Hey, Rye. It’s ready to serve up. Grab a plate. Oh, I forgot to tell you that my friend is coming around after work. She should be here at ten and I told her we could use your two spare bedrooms tonight so we don’t have to drive back until morning.”
“What was that?” Austin asked.
“It was the last straw. I’ll bring your food over in about ten minutes. Leave the door open and I’ll feed you while you soak. How’s that for sexy?”
“Don’t you dare! It’s an important day for Gemma and I will not be the cause of it not being a great evening.”
“Okay, then I’ll be over as soon as we eat and decide what to call her new business. Get that full-sized bed ready because I’m too big for a twin bed and I’m too damned tired for the floor.”
“Rye!”
“Feed you in the tub or spend the night? Your choice.”
“Maybe I want both.”
“It can be arranged, darlin’.”
“Can your whole family hear what you are saying?”
“Frankly, darlin’, I don’t give a shit what they hear. My sister is not going to control my life. I’ll let her have control of the evening until after supper but that’s as nice as I intend to play.”
Colleen yelled again. “Rye! Hang up the phone and come eat supper.”
“On my way,” Rye answered.
“Who are you talking to?” Austin asked.
“Enjoy your bath. I’ll be there in an hour.”
“So,” Gemma said at the supper table, “I was thinking about Cut & Curl.”
“I was thinking about Gemma’s Place,” Maddie said.
“That sounds like a café and people would be coming in expecting a hamburger instead of a haircut,” Colleen said. “Do something exotic.”
Rye raised an eyebrow. “In Ringgold?”
“What do you think, Daddy?” Gemma looked at Cash.
“You going to cut men’s hair as well as fix up the women folks?”
She nodded.
“Then call it Petticoats & Pistols. That way they’ll know they are all welcome. We’ll make a hitchin’ rail out front and you can decorate it all up like a cowboy joint,” Cash said.
Gemma clapped her hands. “I like it. Anybody got anything better? Goin’ once. Goin’ twice. Sold to Daddy. He gets the honor of naming my beauty shop.”
“Just seemed like the way to go to me.” He beamed. “Now that that’s over I call Gemma and Dewar on my domino team.”
“That leaves Momma, Colleen, and Raylen on the other one,” Rye said.
“Are you goin’ to be the referee?” Cash grinned.
“No, I’m not going to be here. I made plans for the evening with Austin. We were going out to dinner and maybe dancing but Colleen surprised me with this wonderful meal so I called Austin and now we’re staying in over at her place. I’m taking her dinner from the leftovers and we’re watching a movie over there.”
Colleen shot daggers across the table. “That’s not very nice.”
“I thought it was very nice. I didn’t forsake you for dinner or the naming of the new business,” Rye told his sister with a big grin on his face.
“You aren’t even yourself lately. You used to be the serious O’Donnell child. Now you run around grinning and whistling. You are going to fall hard.” Colleen shook her finger at him.
“Well, I like her. You go on, son. We can play dominoes without you. I’m goin’ to whip Dewar all over the place,” Cash said.
Colleen set her jaw. “My friend?”
“Your friend and you are more than welcome to stay here.”
“Rye, are you really serious about Austin?” Maddie asked.
“I’ll answer that tomorrow… maybe.”
“That’s a hell of an answer,” Dewar said.
“It’s a hell of a world. I’ll see you all on Sunday.”
***
Austin lazed in a hot bath until the water went cold and her skin looked worse than Greta’s. “We are not horny sixteen-year-old teenagers. We can stay away from each other,” she said as she let out half the water and turned on the hot water again.
Might as well be. Thirty-year-old women with any class at all don’t go around with hickeys on their necks. Verline’s voice was as clear as if she were standing in the bathroom with Austin.
“Oh, hush,” she said.
“Who are you telling to hush? You got company?” Rye asked from the doorway.
“No, I was arguing with Granny again.”
He peeled off his clothes until there was nothing left but his socks. “I put your supper in the fridge. You want me to go get it and feed you?”
“No, food can wait. Come right in. The water is fine.” She crooked a finger at him.
He peeled off his socks and crawled in, facing her. He leaned forward at the same time she did and their hungry lips met in a passionate clash.
“I wonder if we will ever feel any different,” she said.
“Don’t think so. It’s fire and ice every time I kiss you.”
He ran a hand up her leg and she winced.
“What?”
“I haven’t shaved and they’re all prickly.”
He picked up a long leg and set her foot on the edge of the tub. Then he covered the leg with the shaving cream on the straight back chair beside the tub and pick
ed up the razor. With slow deliberate motions he carefully shaved her leg, stopping to kiss her every few seconds. Then he dropped it back into the water and ran his hand from ankle all the way up. She smiled at him and propped the other leg.
No one had ever shaved her legs before and it was as intoxicating sexually as drinking a whole bottle of champagne. By the time he got the second one done every bone in her body was jelly and she felt like she’d just walked out of a spa.
“My turn,” she said.
“You’re not shaving my legs,” he protested.
“No, I’m getting out of this tub and giving you a bath and you can’t touch me until I’m finished.”
“That ain’t fair,” he said.
“Life ain’t fair. Now hush. It’s my turn.”
She got out and wrapped a towel around her body, tucking the ends in under her arm to keep it there. She wet his hair with warm water poured ever so slowly from a plastic cup and then lathered it with shampoo, working it in with her fingertips.
“That feels so damn good I may never leave this tub,” he said.
She kissed him on the neck and nibbled on his earlobe.
“No fair. You are touching!” he said.
“Darlin’, I said you couldn’t touch me. This is like a water lap dance. Be still and enjoy it.”
She took her time rinsing the shampoo from his hair and then put conditioner in it, rubbing his scalp and dark hair until it was slick and soft. When she rinsed that out, she picked up a washcloth, soaped it heavily, and started on his back. He was moaning by the time she pulled the plug and he started to stand up but she put a hand on his shoulder.
“Not yet, cowboy.”
She turned on the hot water to warm up the bathwater again and put the plug back in. “Now I do the front.”
She washed each arm and his chest, playing in the dark swirls of hair with her fingertips. Then she dropped the washcloth and soaped her hands. His eyes widened when they quickly sunk beneath the water and her blue eyes widened when she found him hard and ready.
She smiled and kissed him on the lips. “When we get done we’ll take this show to the bedroom. Now your right leg, please?”
Instead of propping up his leg, he pulled the towel off her with one sweep of the hand and pulled her into the tub with him with the other. She hardly realized she was in the water before he’d turned her over and was making love to her in the warm water. The sensation was even greater than when they’d made love against the wall.
“Oh, my! Don’t stop!”
“I couldn’t if I wanted to,” he said.
“Mmmm,” was all she could get out before his lips found hers again.
“That was amazing,” he whispered as he collapsed on her.
The water made them almost weightless and he decided right then that he was installing a big Jacuzzi so they’d have more room.
“I’ve never…” she started.
“Me neither,” he finished.
“I love it in water,” she panted.
He grinned. How could he ever tell her good-bye every Sunday?
She wrapped her arms around his hips and ran a finger over the scar. “You never did tell me how you got this.”
“Bull got me one time when I was about twenty. Took an even dozen stitches to get it sewed up and I couldn’t ride again that season. What made me mad as hell was he ruined a brand new pair of Wranglers,” Rye said.
She giggled.
“It wasn’t funny.”
“I know, but it is now. Rye, I don’t know if I could watch you ride after seeing the scar and that movie.”
“Yes, you can. I’ve ridden for twelve years since then and nothing happened. Paid my dues early on.” He rose up out of the water like a god—no, like a wet cowboy. That was a helluva lot sexier than any god.
She couldn’t take her eyes off him dripping on the bath mat with the water sluicing off his skin and his dark hair all shiny wet. She finally blinked and stood up.
“Damn, you are somethin’ else, girl. All wet and glowing after sex. You make my mouth go dry.”
She looked down. “Looks like something else is affected too.”
He wrapped a towel around his waist and held out one for her.
“Sex makes me hungry as hell. You sure your sister didn’t poison my supper?”
“I didn’t tell her I was bringing anything over until it was all cooked.”
“She doesn’t like me.” Austin started toward the kitchen.
Rye reached out, drew her close to his side, and kissed her on the forehead. “I don’t want to talk about Colleen. Gemma decided to name her new joint Petticoats & Pistols. Daddy is making a hitching rail out front and she’s doing up the inside in cowboys and cowgirls.”
She heated the food in the microwave while he pulled his jeans on and fastened them. No underwear. He really was commando!
He pushed her hair back and kissed the hickey. “What is that mark on your neck, young lady?” he teased.
“This handsome, sexy man that I know put a hickey on my neck. But hey, he looks worse than I do. I knocked him off the bed. He hit his head on a table and has a Band-Aid on his forehead. I bet he told his sister that surprised him with this wonderful food that he hit his head on a loading chute.”
The smile got even wider and his eyes twinkled. “So you think I’m sexy, do you?”
“You plumb take my breath away, Rye O’Donnell. You have since I first laid eyes on you.” She took the food out and set it on the table.
It was as if she and Rye had grown up next door to each other and just that spring found the physical attraction that had been lying dormant for years.
“So tell me how many sexy men have you…”
She held up a palm. “Don’t even go there or I’ll ask you the same thing and remember I saw all those condoms in your medicine cabinet.”
He grabbed her hand and kissed her fingertips. “Never been to bed with a single sexy man. That’s a promise.”
“You are incorrigible,” she laughed.
“Well, I’m damn glad. I thought all this time I was corrigible and it’s worried me so much that I can’t sleep at night. I even asked the doctor if I could have some penicillin to cure the corrigible but he said the only cure for it is lots of sex with a beautiful dark-haired gypsy woman. And that she had to live so close to me.” He picked up the fork and fed her a bite.
“I’m a big girl. I can feed myself.”
“I didn’t say you couldn’t, darlin’. But it’s a whole lot more fun this way.”
Chapter 16
Grandfather and Grandmother drank martinis. Aunt Clydia had white wine. Barbara fixed a margarita and Aunt Paula had a Tom Collins.
“You got any beer?” Austin asked when she arrived.
“I don’t keep beer,” Barbara said.
“Too bad. Then I guess I’ll have Gentleman Jack, neat.”
Barbara’s quick intake of breath made Austin smile. If Jack Daniels was enough to make her suck air, then wait until she told them her really big news. She’d made up her mind and nothing was going to change it.
Her heart was in Terral.
The watermelon plants had brand new little melons growing on them now and she figured she knew a tiny measure of how mothers felt when they went off to war, leaving children behind. It was hard to be in one place when the heart was in another. Running back and forth had worked fine until she made up her mind, but now she knew how she wanted to spend the rest of her life, and it wasn’t working in an office.
Grandmother touched her arm. “Your mother tells me that you’ve been spending lots of time in southern Oklahoma at that strawberry farm your other grandmother left you.”
“Watermelon, not strawberry. I’ve got almost two thousand acres of melons. I can’t wait until the last part of June when some of them are ready to harvest so I can start making wine. I’ve been studying all of Granny’s old recipes.” Austin could hear the excitement in her voice as she reached for the short
squatty glass of Jack Daniels.
“I’ll buy it from you. We’ll have it appraised and I won’t even quibble over the price,” Grandmother said.
Austin looked at her mother and aunts and saw a picture of herself in twenty-five years. In her grandmother she could see herself in fifty years. The Felder women had been popped out of the same mold for more than a century according to Grandmother. They were all tall, slim dark-haired women with blue eyes.
“Why would you want a watermelon farm?” Austin asked.
“I don’t. I’ll turn around and sell it at auction. If I lose money it’ll be a tax write-off. If I make money, I’ll give the profit to the local library and that will be a write-off. You need to concentrate on your job and promotion, not be exhausted from running back and forth to that hellhole,” Grandmother said.
Austin sipped her whiskey. It warmed her from her mouth to the bottom of her stomach, not totally unlike Rye’s kisses, only they went even deeper and heated her up much, much hotter.
“Thank you for the offer but my farm isn’t up for sale,” Austin said.
She’d chosen a simple black dress that evening with a double strand of oversized pearls that hung below her breasts. Her black heels were four inches high and open-toed to show a fresh pedicure of bright red polish that matched her fingernails. Her hair was straightened, layered, and needed trimming but she hadn’t had time to even think about calling Gemma.
“Why? You are going to sell it eventually anyway.”
“Thank you for the offer.” Austin politely moved to the other side of the room and backed up against the stones surrounding the cold fireplace. Aunt Clydia was telling Grandfather about the possibility of being appointed a judge. She’d gone from prosecuting lawyer to DA in her part of the world and now there was a nomination for a judgeship. His smile said it all. He was very proud of his daughter.
Barbara and Joan were discussing something in the business line; at least they were until Grandmother joined them. Now they were talking in quiet whispers and being obviously careful not to look at Austin.
Another sip of whiskey brought back the warmth and made her think of the amazing sex she and Rye had had the past weekend. She wished she was back in that jam-packed house rolling around on the bed, or hell’s bells, even the floor with him.
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