Love Drunk Cowboy

by Carolyn Brown

  “If you keep touching me, I’ll tell the stock to starve and stay home with you,” he said.

  “No, you will not let those bulls starve,” she said. “But that’s another day and right now I just want to make love with you and not think about watermelons or bulls.”

  He slowly unzipped her dress while setting her on fire with kisses filled with so much emotion that she could hardly breathe. His hands roamed over her silky smooth skin, finding new places to ignite her desire.

  She unbuttoned the rest of his shirt and rolled on top of him, shedding the dress on the way, and pressed her bare breasts against his chest.

  He picked her up again and carried her to the bedroom. “Have I told you today that I love you?”

  “Yes, six times on the text messages and three times on the phone. But that’s not enough so I’d like to hear it again.”

  “I love you, Austin,” he whispered seductively in her ear.

  “And I love you, but right now I’m interested in your body. I’m hot enough to burn down the whole town of Terral, Baptist church, school, and all.”

  “Then I reckon we better put that fire out. You got any ideas,” he teased.

  She pulled him over on top of her and said, “Yes, I do.”

  It was dusk when she awoke from the sleep reserved for two people in love who’ve had too much mind-boggling sex. She opened her eyes to see him propped up on an elbow and staring down at her.

  “Good morning.”

  “Good evening,” he answered. “I should’ve told you before but we were interested in something else. I took your mother and aunts to brunch at the Hyatt yesterday morning.”

  “I know.”

  “And?”

  “Aunt Clydia thought you were simply delicious. Mother wanted to know if we’d both sell out and come to Tulsa. She offered us the dealership. Straight up. No payments. No strings. And she offered to buy us a house.”

  His heart stopped. Was she going to ask him to give up ranching to sell cars? “What did you tell her?”

  “That I wasn’t interested in a good city boy, that I’d keep my bad boy with a tat and a John Deere tractor, and that I was keeping him in Jefferson County. No way was I taking him to Tulsa for all those women to try to take him away from me. I’d have to beat one of them until she was cold if she made a pass at you. So I’m sorry if you are disappointed that you don’t get to go to Tulsa and live the life of luxury. I’m too happy to leave Terral.”

  Chapter 22

  The watermelon crops were in and the guys would be going back to Mexico the next week. Rye had already cut two cuttings of hay from his fields and he and Kent spent the day moving the big round bales into long rows against the back fence.

  That morning he’d thrown a pound of bologna into the cooler with their water and soft drinks and a loaf of bread and some chips into a paper bag. He and Kent had eaten lunch under the shade of a pecan tree. The summer might be mild according to statistics, but July 1st was still only slighter cooler than a barbed wire fence on the back forty acres of hell.

  Rye wiped sweat from his face and neck with a red bandana. “We’ll get at least one more cutting, maybe two if we get the right early fall rains.”

  “Hand me that loaf of bread. Ain’t nothin’ better than a bologna sandwich out in the fields,” Kent said.

  “How’s Mason’s broke arm coming along?”

  “Didn’t slow him down a bit. It’d take more than one broke bone to put that boy out of commission. He’s got the cast off and he’s already throwing a ball.”

  “You are payin’ for your raisin’,” Rye said.

  “Yep, I am but it’s going to be your turn one of these days and pretty damn soon from the way you look at Austin. Just keep in mind, the longer you wait the higher the interest.”

  “What does that mean?” Rye asked.

  “It means exactly what I said. If my boys are leading me around by the nose ring at thirty, just think what yours will do when you are lookin’ forty smack dab in the eye.”

  “I’m only thirty-two,” Rye said.

  “Yeah, well by the time you get married and have two or three you’ll be forty and the interest on raisin’ gets higher with each passin’ year. So why don’t you ask Austin to marry you and get ahead of the game?”

  Rye spewed cold Coke five feet. “What made you say that?”

  “You love her. She loves you. Time is a wastin’, my friend,” Kent said with a broad grin. “Now chew on that like a hound dog with a ham bone.”

  “What if this is just a passing fancy and I’m part of it?” Rye whispered.

  “What if she’s just waitin’ on you to do the askin’ and you let the moment slip right though your fingers? You’ve been in love with her since the first time you laid eyes on her down by the river.”

  Rye nodded. “I’ll chew on it.”

  “Good, now hand me that bologna and some more bread. You better get to chewin’ on something for the body instead of just for the heart or you’re going to be left suckin’ hind tit. I’ve already had more than my share while you been sittin’ there thinkin’ about Austin.”

  Rye made himself a sandwich and opened up another Coke. Kent was right. He loved her and she loved him, but what if they married and she decided she wanted to be in Tulsa after all?

  ***

  Austin sat on the porch steps and watched the big moving truck back into the driveway. If Oma Fay had seen it come through town she was probably already blazing the phone lines getting the word out that Austin had finally thrown in her secondhand boots and was on the way back to Tulsa now that the harvest was over.

  She looked down at her boots while the driver maneuvered the truck so that the back doors would open up close to the porch. “Still got ’em, Oma Fay, so don’t send the vultures out to buy my watermelon farm until you get the whole story.”

  The driver rolled down the window and yelled, “Mornin’, ma’am. You’d be Austin Lanier? Where’s your help?”

  “They’ll be here in about five minutes,” she said. “Want a glass of tea while we wait?”

  He got out of the truck and headed toward the porch. “I’d love some sweet tea. I could relocate down here. It’s peaceful.”

  “Yep, it is. I’ll be right back. I’d ask you to have a seat but I expect after that drive you’d rather be standing,” Austin said on her way into the house.

  “You got that right.” He grinned. He was middle-aged with a sprinkling of gray in his dark hair; medium height, medium build, and bowlegged as if he’d ridden a horse his whole life.

  She filled a quart jar with ice and tea and found him leaning against a porch post smoking a cigarette and talking to her hired hands when she returned. “I see you’ve met the guys.”

  The man nodded. “Felix introduced me. By the way, I’m Paul. Soon as I finish this smoke and polish off half that tea we’ll get started.”

  “We’ll bring out the boxes and put them on the porch while you take a break,” Felix said.

  Paul nodded and turned up the tea. When he finished drinking far more than half, he set the jar on the porch and started helping the men bring box after box out to the front yard.

  “Y’all sure you don’t want me to haul that stuff for you?” he asked.

  “No, we are taking everything to the old barn to store for Miz Austin,” Lobo said.

  “It’ll take several trips in trucks. Once we unload this stuff I’ll have enough empty room at the back of my truck to take them in one load for you. Since you are helping me for free I’ll be glad to do that for you for free,” Paul said.

  “Then we’ll take your offer,” Felix said.

  At noon the front yard was full of boxes and furniture.

  “It’s dinnertime,” Austin said. “I’m calling the Peach Orchard and telling them to feed you all today and put it on my bill. Felix, take both trucks and Paul with you. When you get back it won’t take long to unload the truck. Lord, where did all this…”

  “Chá
chara!” Felix grinned.

  Austin smiled.

  “But it was her junk and I’m not ready to get rid of it,” Austin said.

  “Someday you might like to have it so don’t get in a hurry,” Felix said.

  “What is this Peach Orchard?” Paul asked.

  “You like fish?” Austin asked him.

  “Love it.”

  “Calf fries?” Lobo asked.

  “You got to be kiddin’ me. They really make them there?”

  “Yes, they do. You can even buy a T-shirt that says so if you want,” Felix told him.

  “Well, hot damn!” Paul said excitedly. “Let’s go. If you’d have told me that I mighta hauled all this fancy stuff down here for free.”

  “Just my luck. I’ve already paid you,” Austin said.

  “No, honey, you paid the company I work for. For calf fries and decent sweet tea I wouldn’t have charged you a dime,” he said.

  “You goin’ with us, Miz Austin?” Lobo asked.

  “No. You guys go on,” she said. Hopefully Rye would stop by on his lunch break. With harvest, rodeo, and wine, she hadn’t seen him in three days. They’d talked on the phone each night and once he’d tooted his horn when he was on his way to Nocona for a tractor part, but that didn’t net even one kiss, much less a trip to the bedroom.

  ***

  Rye’s heart stopped.

  His breath caught in his chest.

  The world stopped turning.

  He stomped the brakes so hard that his truck slung gravel halfway to Galveston and he only missed running smack over Granny’s old sofa sitting out in the yard by turning the steering wheel hard to the right.

  One minute he had been driving along listening to Blake Shelton sing “Delilah;” the next he was out of the truck and stomping toward the porch, his boots crunching the driveway gravel with each step.

  Austin dropped the tray of ice on the floor and ran to the door when she heard the commotion. It sounded as if there had been a wreck right in her front yard. She met Rye blasting through the front door.

  “Want a sandwich?” she asked.

  “Hell, no!” he growled.

  “Well, good afternoon to you too,” she said curtly.

  No hug.

  No kiss.

  “What are you doing?” His voice was hoarse and cold.

  “I might ask you the same thing. Why were you trying to sling all my gravel to the river? What’s got you all in a twist?”

  “You!”

  “What did I do?”

  He pointed to the tat around his arm. “I should’ve listened to the barbed wire.”

  She popped her hands on her hips. “Honey, there ain’t a piece of barbed wire mean enough in the world to keep me out of a pasture I want to crawl into, and you’d best start explaining that comment.”

  “You are leaving. This house is empty.”

  “You’ve got shit for brains. I’m not going anywhere. I closed up my apartment in Tulsa a month early. That truck out there has my things in it and I’m moving them in here. Granny’s stuff is all going up to that room at the back of the implement barn up by the garden. Someday I might go through it a box at a time, but right now I don’t have time. I’ve got wine to make and a wedding to plan if the hot-headed sexy rancher from across the road ever gets off his lazy ass and asks me to marry him.”

  She wore cut-off overalls, a red tank top, and her hair in a ponytail. Her cowboy boots were worn at the heels and scuffed at the toes. Her blue eyes danced and sweat trickled down her neck. She was so damn beautiful that he couldn’t believe what she’d just said. He shook his head but the words didn’t disappear.

  “Well, I’m talking about you, Rye O’Donnell.”

  “My ass is not lazy.”

  “Yes, it is. And honey, if I have to, I’ll get the wire snips and take part of that damned barbed wire tattoo off your arm. I intend to get to the other side and make a nice warm nest in your heart.”

  Had someone told her four months before that she’d be standing in her grandmother’s kitchen proposing to the man from across the street she would have never believed them. But there she was, vulnerable as she waited on his response and hoping she didn’t have to really get down the wire snips and make him bleed when she removed a section of his barbed wire.

  Rye dropped down on one knee and took her hand in his. “Austin Lanier, will you marry me?”

  “Do you mean it or are you just protecting your tat?”

  He pulled at her hand and she joined him on the floor.

  “I love you. Have since the first minute I laid eyes on you while you were taking care of Granny’s ashes down at the river.”

  “Aha! I knew my gut wasn’t wrong.”

  “What?”

  “I knew you were back there. I could feel it in my gut. And this is supposed to be romantic so…”

  He smiled. “I’ve planned something far more romantic but that truck out there scared the bejesus out of me.”

  “Yes, Rye, I will marry you. I’ve loved you almost as long as you have me.”

  He gathered her into his arms and kissed her long, hard, and passionately.

  “When?” he whispered.

  She snuggled into his chest a few moments longer and then leaned back. “As soon as you buy me a wedding band. A big wide gold band that I won’t have to take off to squeeze watermelons for wine making. How soon can you do that?”

  “Tomorrow morning,” he said.

  “Then tomorrow morning, it is.” She wrapped her arms around his neck and brought his lips down to hers.

  Chapter 23

  Wil clapped a hand on Rye’s shoulder. “Granny Lanier meant for me to have her granddaughter and you slipped across the road so fast I didn’t have a chance.”

  “Yes, I did.” Rye grinned as he hugged Austin up closer to his side in the reception line.

  “Heard y’all moved into the house and you’re bringing Felix and his family up from Mexico legally to work for y’all.”

  “That’s right,” Rye told Wil. “We’re hoping to get this bunch settled in by next spring and maybe one more family the year after that. We’re going to build a bigger house down the road a little ways.”

  “But on Granny’s side of the road,” Austin said.

  “Why?” Wil asked.

  “Because that’s what she wants and she isn’t nice when we don’t do what she wants.” Austin laughed.

  “Well, be happy and come visit my ranch sometime,” Wil said and moved away to the food tables.

  “Sneakin’ off to the courthouse like that wasn’t fair.” Ace was next in line. “You knew you had to act fast or else I’d steal her away from you.”

  “Wasn’t takin’ no chances,” Rye said.

  Austin was beautiful in a white lace dress that barely touched the tops of her new white cowboy boots. Rye wore a western cut black suit and eel boots polished to a shine. Pictures had been taken. Food was being served from long tables in the Terral community room. The yard was full of tables set up under tents and people were standing in line to congratulate the bride and groom.

  Molly and Greta were happy because they’d been the first to know about the courthouse wedding the month before, which put them on top of the gossip game. They’d actually planned the reception at the community room in Terral, sent invitations, and ordered a cake and food before they even told Austin it was in the works.

  Pearlita was serving wedding cake. Colleen and Gemma were taking care of the groom’s table.

  “Happy?” Rye whispered when he kissed her for the hundredth time since they’d awakened that September morning on their one-month wedding anniversary.

  “Of course I’m happy. I love you, Rye.”

  “What was that?” Barbara walked up behind her.

  “I said I love his cowboy ass.” Austin laughed.

  “What happened to my child?” she moaned to her sisters, one on each side of her.

  “She grew up,” Clydia said.

  “
Don’t worry, Momma. In between making hay, making wine, and making love we plan on making lots of children. You can come to Terral and spoil them all you want,” Austin said.

  “You called me Momma… I don’t know if I like that,” Barbara said.

  “It’ll get you ready to be called Granny in a while,” Austin told her.

  “I’ll come around and spoil the babies when they come along if she doesn’t,” Clydia said. “That way, I can have grandchildren without all the fuss of a husband and kids of my own that way.”

  “Oh no you don’t. They are mine,” Barbara said.

  Austin winked at Clydia. “You are all welcome any time.”

  “Look at the time.” Barbara pointed to the clock on the wall.

  “What?” Austin asked.

  “Time for your dance out by that stage thing in the yard and then I get to dance with that handsome cowboy you married while you dance with his father,” Barbara said. “You’ve got to learn to share, Austin.”

  Austin slipped her hand in Rye’s. “Not very often, Mother. But you do deserve to dance with him since he’s your son now.” She tugged on Rye’s hand. “Let’s go show ’em how it’s done, darlin’.”

  The whine of Raylen’s fiddle met them when they walked across the lawn. Rye pulled Austin close to his side as Grandpa began to sing “Rye Whiskey.”

  “Welcome home, Austin O’Donnell,” Rye said.

  Austin wrapped both arms around his neck and the kiss went on and on until the whole crowd began to whoop and holler.

  The song finished and Colleen stepped up to the microphone. “Hey, y’all. Everyone havin’ a good time?”

  Applause answered her.

  “I’ve got a toast for the bride and groom. Got to admit I didn’t really like Austin at first. Figured her for a city slicker that wouldn’t get her hands dirty and who damn sure wouldn’t stick around when the going got tough. She proved me wrong so here’s a toast to my new sister and to my brother who was a love drunk cowboy from the minute he laid eyes on that woman.” Colleen held up a bottle of beer.