by R. C. Ryan
“You’re welcome.”
Shiloh’s hand went to her face. “I’m not thanking you for hitting me.”
“If I hadn’t, you might’ve laid there and died, and then you’d never know what it would be like to really have that good-lookin’ cowboy on top of you,” Bonnie teased.
“You’re certifiably goofy.” Shiloh’s cheeks burned with a bright red blush.
“Don’t tell me that you weren’t enjoying the feeling.” Bonnie started inside the house. “And besides, I saw the way you looked at my grocery bag luggage when we first got here on the ranch, and I’ve wanted a good reason to slap the fire out of you ever since.”
“I’ll get even.” Shiloh hadn’t realized how much she’d missed the banter between her and her sisters until that moment. “It’ll come at a time when you least expect it.”
“Bring your lunch.” Bonnie went into the house ahead of her. “It you hit me without good reason, I’ll mop up the yard with your skinny butt.”
“Hey, that’s the pot calling the kettle black.” Shiloh followed her. “My butt looks damn fine compared to yours.”
Bonnie did a head wiggle that made her big loopy earrings dance. “In your dreams. Old Ezra saved the best until last.”
Rusty and Waylon were already at the table with a beverage in front of each one of them.
“And still couldn’t get a boy,” Rusty said.
Bonnie tucked a strand of blond hair into her ponytail, and air slapped Rusty on the arm. “That was his fault, not mine.”
Tonight she was wearing her little diamond nose stud, her good luck charm when she went to the casinos or played cards. Rusty removed his wire-rimmed glasses and cleaned them with the tail of his T-shirt. He raked his fingers through his brown hair and then put his glasses back on. That was his good luck routine every time they played any kind of game. Shiloh watched Waylon to see if he had a gimmick, but he simply took a sip and started shuffling the cards.
“Beer or a wine cooler?” Bonnie asked her sister.
“Wine cooler,” Shiloh replied.
“That’s her good luck charm, Waylon. Her tell is when she rolls her eyes at the ceiling and then takes a long drink from the bottle,” Bonnie tattled.
“Bonnie’s tell is when she fiddles with her nose ring.” Shiloh ratted her sister out. “That means she’s got a good hand.”
“That’s good to know in both cases.” Waylon dealt the cards. “But I’m not banking on either of you telling us guys the truth.”
“You shouldn’t.” Shiloh picked up her cards, fanned them out, and smiled. “After that stunt you pulled in the truck, you better be very careful.”
“What was that?” Rusty asked.
Shiloh told them what had happened. “He deserved to fall after that. I need a card.”
“You, sir, are one lucky cowboy. It’s a wonder that she didn’t push you down!” Bonnie said in her deep woodsy Kentucky drawl.
“Guess I am pretty lucky,” Waylon said and threw a coin on the table. “I’m in for a quarter.”
“Big spender right here at first, aren’t you?” Bonnie threw one of her coins into the center of the table.
“Got to spend money to make money,” Rusty said.
“That’s what my mama says.” Shiloh made a mental note to call her mother. She hadn’t talked to her about the wedding, or all the things that had happened since then. Polly was going to have a million questions about Waylon. With that in mind, maybe she should drag her feet a little before she called her mama.
* * *
Waylon was two dollars richer when they got home that evening, but he was a million dollars poorer if they’d measured in tiredness rather than money. He’d been thrown from bulls and broncs and had been back on his feet and working within two days. Why did one little wreck affect him like this?
He crutched his way into the house, eased down on the sofa, and leaned his head back. “You can have the bed all to yourself. I’m not moving from right here tonight.”
“Oh, no, you will not sleep on the sofa,” Shiloh argued. “You’ll wake up so sore in the morning that I’ll have to carry you to the truck to do the chores.” She dropped her purse on the end table and picked up his leg to remove his boot. Then she pointed down the hall. “I’m going to have a shower before I turn in.”
“You can’t sleep in here if I can’t.” He reached for his crutches. “After that fall, you’re going to be sore right along with me tomorrow morning. The only way I’m sleeping in the bed is if you take the other half of it like you did last night.”
“All right then.” She nodded. “Don’t wait up for me, though.”
“Don’t worry.” He yawned as he stood up and headed down the hall. “I’ll be asleep the minute my head hits the pillow.”
When he reached his bedroom, he was surprised to see that the bed was made, and the clothes hamper was empty. He usually made his bed, but he’d been in a hurry that morning.
He was exhausted by the time he removed his jeans and got into a pair of pajama pants, but his eyes were wide open when he finally pulled the covers up around his chest. If he had any doubts at all about the chemistry between him and Shiloh, they had disappeared when he fell on top of her that evening. His lips were only inches from hers, and if Bonnie and Rusty hadn’t rushed out when they did, he would have kissed her for sure. He laced his hands behind his head and stared out the window at the black clouds shifting over what was left of the moon. The weatherman had said that thunderstorms might be on the way the next day with the possibility of hail and high winds. He could be right this time. Waylon had been having his own personal tempest since his accident, and he was about to give in and forget all about the idea of not asking Shiloh out until the year’s end. They could date now, figure out if they even liked each other for more than friends and neighbors, and not waste time wondering.
It took a blow to your head to make you come to your senses. The voice in his head sounded an awful lot like his granddad.
“I’m a little slow,” he whispered.
“Were you talking to me?” Shiloh asked as she entered the room.
“No, just muttering to myself.” He sat up in bed and pulled the covers back for her.
“Sweet Jesus!” she gasped. “Why didn’t you tell me you had all those bruises on your body?”
He hadn’t meant for her to see the black-and-blue marks, but he’d totally forgotten to put a T-shirt on that night. He was so tired that he’d almost crawled into bed in the nude, which is the way he usually slept.
“They’ll heal,” he said.
She ignored the covers and sat down on his side of the bed. She ran a finger over the worst of the bruises—the one where the doctor thought he possibly had a cracked rib, but the X-ray told a different tale. Her touch made his mouth go dry and his hands get clammy. She finally looked up at him and moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue.
He leaned forward, cupped her cheeks with his big hands, and looked deeply into her deep blue eyes. Their lips met in a sweet kiss that deepened into more and more until they were both panting. She finally pulled away from him and stood up.
“It might be best if I sleep on the sofa tonight after that,” she told him.
“I’ll put a pillow between us,” he offered.
“I’m not sure there’s one big enough. Remember what the doctor said about no strenuous activity. I reckon sex would be pretty vigorous,” she said between long, deep breaths.
“I’ll be good.” He crossed his heart with his finger like a little boy. After that kiss it might not be easy, but he was a man of his word, no matter how tough it was.
Chapter Six
Shiloh awoke to the noise of something scratching on the door the next morning. At first she thought she was at home on Malloy Ranch and one of the three dogs wanted someone to get up and feed them. Then she realized she was at Waylon’s place. She hadn’t seen a dog in the two days she’d been there, and hopefully, Polly hadn’t followed them hom
e the night before. If she had, Rusty would think Shiloh had stolen her.
She got out of bed carefully so she wouldn’t wake Waylon. The rising sun defined the trees, now with a few buds and minty green leaves, instead of only dry, brittle branches. The scratching continued and she was surer with every step that Polly had run away from home.
She opened the door and the ugliest dog she’d ever seen ran into the house. It had long yellow hair, short legs, and a wide jaw. Poor thing looked like its mama might have been a corgi and its papa a Labrador—and it had a rat in its jaws. There were two things that Shiloh hated, and rats were both of them. She froze right there, door wide open, and a calico cat rushed in after the dog with another of those rat things in her mouth. The dog went to the living room, dropped the gray thing on the floor, and stretched out beside it. That’s when Shiloh realized it wasn’t a rat but a kitten.
The cat laid its little burden down, and Shiloh realized both of the critters were kittens. She started to close the door and the cat rushed out and brought in a third baby and took it to the living room. She flopped down so that the kittens were between her and the dog.
“What’s goin’ on?” Waylon asked as he crutched up the hallway. “Thunder woke me up. Is it raining?”
“Yep,” she said. “It’s raining cats and dogs.”
He peeked out the door, and raised an eyebrow. “The wind is blowing, but I don’t see any rain.”
A loud clap of thunder caused the dog to whimper and wrap itself more securely around the mama cat and the kittens.
“Good Lord!” Waylon muttered when he saw the sight in his living room. “Where did those things come from?”
“The porch, I guess,” Shiloh said. “I opened the door and both of them brought in the kittens and made themselves at home. Never seen anything like it. Thought they were carryin’ in rats at first and then I thought it was puppies. Do we keep ’em?”
“Well, I was thinkin’ about gettin’ a dog, but one that would help round up cattle, not kittens.” He crutched over to the sofa and sat down.
The dog’s tail thumped against the hardwood floor, so Waylon reached a hand down. The mutt licked it and then nosed the cat toward him. The cat left the dog to babysit her three wiggling kittens and went over to wind around Shiloh’s legs.
The rain came in like a huge sheet of water from the dark clouds. A powerful wind slammed it against the windowpanes so fiercely that Shiloh was sure it would break the glass. “We can’t put them out.”
“Guess you’d better scramble up extra eggs this mornin’, and when the storm passes we’ll ride into Claude and get them some food. We’ve got babies to raise. You going to stick around and help me with them after the week is over?” Waylon asked.
“I’ll visit them on weekends and at least once through the week, but I can’t leave Malloy Ranch permanently.” She sat down on the floor, and the mama cat crawled up in her lap. “What’s your name, pretty girl?”
“That’ll be your job.”
“They’ll be your cat and kittens. You should name them,” Shiloh said.
Waylon pulled his phone from the pocket of his pajama pants, surfed through it for a minute, and then laid it on the end table. Blake Shelton was singing “I’ll Name the Dogs.” The lyrics said that she could name the babies, and he’d name the dogs.
“Are we still talkin’ about kittens?” she asked.
“Yep, we are, but that song came to mind,” he told her. “This poor old boy is so ugly I’m not sure what to name him.”
“Well, my cat and babies are so pretty, it won’t be hard to name them once I find out if they’re boys or girls,” she told him. “But right now, I’d better get some breakfast started and hope this storm gets on past us so we can go get the feeding done and make that drive to town.”
The mama cat followed her to the kitchen and purred its thanks as Shiloh made sausage gravy, biscuits, and scrambled eggs. Whoever tossed the poor creatures out, she thought, should be caught out in the rain without an umbrella—and then shot right between the eyes.
Her phone rang and she dug it out of the pocket of her pajama bottoms. “Hello, Bonnie! You’re never going to believe—”
“Did you find the dog and cat?” Bonnie asked.
“How did you know about them?” Shiloh asked. “Did Waylon already call Rusty?”
“No, but I was hoping you’d find them before this damn rain started. I got soaking wet getting from my old truck to the house after I left them all on your porch,” Bonnie told her.
“You rat! Why didn’t you ask Waylon before you did that?”
“Because he might have said no, and you’ve talked about wanting a cat, and”—she stopped for a breath—“you remember Granny Denison, who comes to church?”
“The little old lady that sits behind us and sings off-key?” Shiloh asked.
“Yep, that’s the one,” Bonnie said. “She died yesterday, and Rusty found out her great-nephew inherited her house. The guy was going to put Granny Denison’s dog and cat to sleep if someone didn’t take them. Polly, Martha, and Vivien hate cats, so we couldn’t have them.”
“That’s horrible.” Shiloh couldn’t imagine killing the dog, even if it wasn’t the prettiest animal in the world, or that sweet cat and kittens.
“I thought so too, so when Rusty told me, I drove over there and got them. I didn’t want either of you to say no before you saw them, so I kind of left them on the porch,” Bonnie said.
“What’s their names?” Shiloh asked.
“Callie is the cat. Blister is the dog. You can name the kittens,” Bonnie said. “And there’s food, a litter pan, and their toys in your van. I didn’t want to leave it all on the porch with the storm coming.”
When something wasn’t quite right—especially where either Bonnie or Abby Joy was concerned—Shiloh got the same antsy feeling that she had right then. “You are a sneaky one,” she said when it finally hit her what Bonnie was doing, “but it won’t work. I’m coming home as soon as the doctor clears Waylon.”
“Are you accusing me of trying to get you to stay with Waylon so I’ll get the ranch?” Bonnie laughed.
“Are you?”
“If I am, is it going to work?”
“Hell, no!” Shiloh said. “I’m hanging up, and you’re still a rat!”
“Did you find their owners?” Waylon made his way into the kitchen.
“They belonged to Granny Denison, and she died. Her great-nephew was going to put them to sleep, so Bonnie brought them over here,” she said. “The dog’s name is Blister. The cat is Callie. So you don’t get to name the dog. Do I still get to name the babies?”
“How about I name the boys, and you can name the girls.” He smiled again.
Waylon had smiled twice in one day! She should’ve gone to the pound and brought in cats and dogs before now.
“Tell her thank you. It gets lonely around here,” Waylon said.
Shiloh whipped around and stared at him without blinking. Surely she’d heard him wrong. Any other man would be cussin’ and throwing things. “Are you serious?”
He dragged a chair over to the stove, which was no easy feat with crutches, and propped his leg on it. “Move over and I’ll help out, and yes, I’m very serious. Besides, what were the chances that I could have a dog and cat both? Most of the time, they hate each other, and on the plus side, since you let them in, you have to come visit and babysit them from time to time. I’m sorry to hear about Granny Denison. When’s the funeral? We should go.”
“I’ll ask Bonnie,” Shiloh answered.
When he leaned over to get the butter, his arm touched hers. The chemistry was definitely still there. It hadn’t died since the kiss from the night before. What would it hurt to see where a few dates might lead? A fling didn’t necessarily mean wedding bells and a pretty white dress.
Chapter Seven
Shiloh could count the funerals she’d been to in her lifetime on the fingers of one hand. The last one had been just a g
raveside service for Ezra, and she was expecting that for Granny Denison. She couldn’t have been more wrong.
When she and Waylon entered the church that Friday morning, the place was already packed. If Bonnie and Rusty hadn’t saved them a seat on the back row, they would have had to stand along the walls like so many other folks. A low buzz from whispered conversations made it sound like a beehive was nearby. Then Waylon reached over and took Shiloh’s hand and suddenly the whole place went eerily quiet.
For a split second, Shiloh expected to see a picture of their hands with their names emblazoned across the bottom on the big screen that hung at the front of the church. She was relieved when she looked up and saw the preacher taking his place behind the podium. “I have specific written instructions from Granny Denison concerning this funeral. The first thing I’m to do is read the obituary. ‘Mary Audrey Denison was born March seventeenth, 1921, right here in the Palo Duro Canyon to Henry and Wilma Denison. She was the oldest of ten children and the only girl in the family. She died March seventeenth, 2020, on her birthday, which is exactly what she hoped she would do. She said that when people die on their birthdays it completes the cycle of life. She was preceded in death by her parents and all her brothers. She leaves behind her dog, Blister, and cat, Callie.’ I understand that Waylon Stephens has taken both of them in and plans to give them a good home. That’s all I’m supposed to say, so now I’ll turn the service over to our song leader.”
The lady stood up from the front pew and made her way to the podium. “Granny Denison said that she couldn’t carry a tune in a galvanized milk bucket but that she truly loved music, and that we were to sing her through the Pearly Gates today. Open your hymnals to page one seventy-nine and we will start with her first choice, ‘Abide with Me.’”
Shiloh wasn’t a bit surprised to hear Waylon’s deep voice—after all, he’d probably been named for one of her favorite country singers, Mr. Waylon Jennings. Every stanza of the song ended with the words “abide with me.” Shiloh should’ve been thinking about her spiritual life, but the lyrics made her think of where she’d been abiding the last week. Not only abiding, but sleeping in the same bed with Waylon—and getting into some pretty hot make-out sessions before they both went to sleep at night.
