One Lucky Cowboy

by Carolyn Brown

  "You don't keep secrets worth a damn," Slade said.

  "Oh, was it a secret? You didn't tell me not to tell Ellen and Nellie. If it's a secret, next time let me know ahead of time, and I'll tell you a secret. Guess what it is? I don't keep secrets worth a damn."

  Jane didn't know why she was baiting him. He'd played nice. Picked her up when she'd fallen in a heap at his feet. Told her she could stay in bed and not prepare his breakfast. Maybe it was because she didn't like the feelings he evoked when he touched her.

  He finished his eggs and carried his plate to the sink. "You are one of them vicious little girls."

  "Oh, did I hurt your little ego? I'm sorry. Maybe Elaine will puff it all back up for you on Friday night. I could have a nice little chat with her. Where's her phone number?"

  "You stay away from her. You are horrible. I'm not going to be your friend after all."

  "Well, praise the Lord! I thought for a minute He didn't even listen to my prayers last night."

  "What is all this bickering about? It's too early to be fighting," Nellie said as she entered the room.

  "She's vicious. I'm going to work."

  "He's mean."

  Nellie smiled. "I remember when me and Lester first met. We fought like two cats with their tails tied together and thrown over a clothesline. I thought he had a big head because he had this ranch and he thought I was a city girl who didn't know chocolate cake from cow shit."

  "What happened?" Jane poured a cup of coffee and joined Nellie and Ellen at the table.

  "They killed each other. Of course they called it marriage. That just meant it was a long, slow, painful death," Slade said. He almost made it out the door before Ellen's coffee cup hit him in the back.

  "You are all mean women. You can't go to any more parties," he yelled back as he slammed the door, leaving behind a broken cup.

  "What happened is that we fought for six months. Reason we did it was that we knew right off we were attracted to each other and neither of us wanted to give in and admit it. I wasn't going to be tied down to cows and a stupid ranch. He wanted a girl who'd been raised on a ranch who'd be his equal. Guess what? Neither one of us got what we wanted."

  "Tell me more," Jane said.

  "The passion of the fight carried us through forty good years of marriage. We loved just as passionately as we fought. And heaven help the person who thought they could divide us."

  "Ain't that the truth? Remember Aunt Minnie?" Ellen said.

  "What happened?" Jane was all ears.

  "She tried to get between them when they were fighting. She said Nellie didn't have to put up with him and could come live with her. She didn't have to live on a stinking farm with a jackass for a husband. Nellie set her straight with about ten words. Something about not getting in her business or her marriage."

  "So, you and Slade fighting because you hate each other, or because you're afraid of what you do feel?"

  "He says I'm like his sister or a friend. He asked my advice about taking Elaine out on Friday. I'd say he's not afraid of anything about me," Jane said.

  Both Ellen and Nellie laughed so hard they had to cross their legs to keep from wetting their pants.

  Jane couldn't figure out what was so damned funny. The ladies needed to go back to bed and sleep off the effects of the alcohol from the night before.

  Chapter 6

  SLADE DRESSED IN BLACK WRANGLERS, POLISHED COWBOY boots, and a blue plaid, western cut shirt that had been tailored to fit his wide shoulders and narrow waist. He'd found time to get a haircut that week so the curls over the tops of his ears and on his neck were gone. The aroma of shaving lotion permeated the house for an hour after he left.

  Slade whistled in appreciation when Elaine opened the door. She wore a black and white floral sundress with just a hint of cleavage. Freshly painted red toenails peeked from white sandals. Blonde hair begging for a man to tangle his fingers in the softness flowed to her shoulders.

  She smiled and picked up her purse from a table right inside the door. "I'll take that as a compliment. I'd invite you in for a drink, but I wouldn't be responsible for my actions if I drank on an empty stomach. I might not be any more responsible later on when I do intend to invite you in. If I could whistle I would, but I can't, so I'll just tell you outright. You are one damn handsome piece of eye candy."

  "Thank you, ma'am."

  He opened the door for her and settled her into the seat, making sure the hem of her dress was safely inside. A vision of Jane sitting in that same place just last week deflated his puffed up ego pretty quickly. She'd never told him he was a handsome piece of eye candy. She'd fought with him on every issue and wouldn't tell him a thing about herself.

  He opened the driver's side pickup door and said, "So tell me all about yourself, Elaine. Why isn't a beauty like you already married with a couple of kids?"

  "Been there. Done that. Didn't like it. I graduated high school from Whitesboro ten years ago. Stop figuring my age in your head; it's not polite to ask a woman her age or to figure it up from something she says," she smiled, showing perfect teeth. It must have cost someone their calf crop to pay for the braces.

  "Yes, ma'am," he smiled.

  She was funny. Jane wasn't funny; she was biting. All the time sparring back and forth with barbs meant to sting, not make him laugh.

  "Anyway, I went on to college over at Midwestern in Wichita Falls. Met a fellow there in acting class. God, he was good-looking. Not as handsome as you, darlin', but movie star pretty. You're rugged, like Clint Eastwood in his younger days or Robert Redford back when he was thirty. Jeff was downright pretty and determined to be the next big Hollywood star. Name in the tabloids—the whole enchilada. I got pregnant. We got married. He said it ended his career and he never forgave me for it. He became a high school speech teacher and we moved to Alvord, Texas."

  Jane hedged around every question and Elaine was telling him her life story, when all he had wanted to know when he asked the question was what kind of movies and food she liked. He shook his head to remove the picture of Jane in that sundress the night they'd been forced to go to dinner.

  "We had a son and then another one the year after Jeff started teaching. Last year they were three and five. There I was, living on his teacher's salary and my job as a bank teller, unhappy as hell, making ends meet most months, but not having a damn thing I was used to. I was about to suffocate to death. So I told Jeff we needed some time apart. I liked it so well I filed for divorce. It was final three months ago."

  He parked the car in front of Applebee's in Gainesville. "So does your ex have the boys this weekend? I didn't hear anyone in the background at your house."

  "My grandmother left me that house when she died last year. I've always loved it and I wanted Jeff to move to Ardmore with me. He refused. But to answer your question, yes, he has the kids this weekend. Next weekend is mine. I get them second and fourth weekends through the school year and two weeks in the summer. I could have had them four weeks, but two is enough."

  "You mean you don't have custody?" Slade asked.

  "No, darlin', Jeff is much better with them than I am. Besides, just think of all that child care I'd have to pay out. I love my boys, but I don't want to live with them twenty-four seven. You know what I felt when I walked away from them and Jeff? Pure relief. I don't think we would have ever married if I hadn't gotten pregnant."

  Slade was stunned into silence.

  "Let's see, that's the dark side of my life. This past year I went on back to college and finished my degree. I work as an accountant at an oil company in Ardmore. I'm happy and I don't intend ever to marry again. So the pressure is off you, darlin'."

  Slade didn't feel any kind of relief. He parked the truck at the steak house and went around to open the door for Elaine like a gentleman. He'd make it through the night, but it was damn sure going to be a long one. If Jane knew all about Elaine and had pulled a trick on him, he swore he'd get even.

  Elaine took his arm a
s they headed toward the restau rant door. "Now let's talk about you and that woman you had at the barn dance the other night. Did I tell you how I got there? My older brother owns a ranch near Healdton and is cow-buying buddies with Beau. I went with him and his wife. It was either that or they were going to ask me to babysit their four kids. I'm not fond of dirt and barns, but it was better than changing diapers and reading Sleeping Beauty for a bedtime story."

  The hostess seated them and Slade fought the impulse to go to the bathroom, crawl out the window, and go home. He opened the menu and willed himself to sit still.

  "I think I'll have the rib eye topped with garlic and mushrooms, baked potato, dinner salad, and iced tea," he said. There was no way he was trusting a single beer in his system. Even if he was eye candy, he didn't intend to go past the front door of the woman's house.

  "Not me. I never eat steak. Let's see. I'll have the Cajun lime tilapia and a Margarita."

  The waiter disappeared with their orders.

  Elaine propped her elbows on the table and propped her chin on the shelf made by turning her fingers inward. "Now let's talk about you. You are about thirty. You have never been married and you have no children."

  "Pretty much sums it up," Slade said.

  "Oh, no, it barely gets the ball rolling, darlin'. Now we're going to really talk. Why haven't you been married? My guess—and I'm a good judge of people—is that you don't want to be. You like your ranch and you have your grandmother to take care of. A wife would interfere with both. Right? Of course I'm right. I know you already even though we've only danced a few times and ridden half an hour to Gainesville from Ardmore."

  Slade took a deep breath. "I'd like to have a wife someday. Someone who loves ranching as much as I do and gets a smile on her face when a new calf is born." He hoped that would let all the helium out of the balloon she was floating with his name on it.

  "Honey, they don't make women like that. If one says she likes living out on a remote ranch south of Ringgold, Texas, you pull up your Wranglers and go on home because you've got a lyin' bitch in bed with you. And a smile when a baby calf is born. Yuk! That would be even worse than smiling after childbirth. It might happen, but it's fake. Be careful of those kind of women."

  "You are full of advice," he said.

  Their drinks arrived. Slade stirred three packages of sugar into his tea and Elaine seductively licked the salt from one side of her drink. He remembered the way Jane had downed half a mug of beer.

  Elaine cocked her head to one side, obviously trying to be coy. "On to the children issue now, since I was right about the wife business. You are an only child, and you know nothing about children. Probably never been around very many in your life unless it was up at your cousin Beau's place a few times a year. I understand he comes from a big family. Too damn bad he's already taken. I might have set my cap for him. But don't worry. I don't go after married men when there're plenty of good-looking single ones struttin' around."

  He thought, I'm on my way to the courthouse tomorrow morning with the first woman I see after I let you out of the truck tonight, and from now on I walk like an old man using a cane.

  He said, "Well, that's a good thing. Milli would scratch your eyes out if you looked cross-eyed at her husband. I heard she flattened one of his old girlfriends with one good right hook." That brought back the memory of Jane's "good right hook" under Kristy's chin. He wondered if Milli and Jane had sprung from the same family tree root. It didn't look possible on the outside, what with Milli being a Mexican. However, there was that little bit of English coming from her maternal grandmother, so she and Jane could have possibly shared the same DNA from a thousand years before.

  "That's why I steer clear of married men. So tell me, am I right about you?"

  "I love kids. Hope to have a yard full of them someday."

  She giggled. "You almost had me. For a minute there I thought you were serious, but you have a dry sense of humor. I like it."

  Jane picked up the book Ellen had given her. A fat romance by an author she didn't recognize, but Ellen promised it would have her swooning before the end of the evening. She read the first five pages and didn't feel a sudden urge to rush out and kiss the first man she encountered. She made herself sit still and read the next ten pages. Interesting, but not enough to hold her attention.

  She tossed the book aside and pulled back the curtains to look out at the moon. They'd be finished with dinner by now and off to see a movie. Was he laughing as hard as he did when they watched The Bucket List, or was it a chick flick? Was Elaine sniffling and Slade yawning?

  To get away from her own thoughts, she wandered down the hall, through the den and dining room, and into the living room, where Ellen and Nellie had set up a card table. Two other older ladies from near Alvord had come to play bridge. They had arrived about the time Slade left, tossed their purses in a recliner, and sat down to play some serious cards. Myra was short, stocky, and wore her gray hair in a frizzy do that would rival Kizzy Jane in the old Roots series. Jeannie was tall, thin, and had a little gray bun on top of her head. They both wore jeans, T-shirts, sneakers, and serious expressions.

  Jane had escaped to her room with Ellen's book as soon as the introductions were over. Her attention was held by the book for a few minutes, by the twinkling stars a little longer, by the waning moon—until she blinked a couple of times, and then she found herself wandering back through the house.

  "Want to play?" Ellen asked Jane.

  "I'll raise you ten," Myra said.

  "I'll see your ten and raise you twenty. Jane, honey, be a dear and mix another blender of daiquiris for Ellen and bring in three beers for the rest of us," Nellie said.

  Jane's eyes widened. She was sure she heard Nellie tell Slade to go have a wonderful date, that she and Ellen had invited a couple of friends for bridge. Didn't look like bridge to her. She rolled two limes on the countertop until they were squishy, then squeezed them into a measuring cup. She poured two ounces into a stainless steel shaker, added three ounces of Bacardi, two teaspoons of powdered sugar, and a few ice cubes and shook it until the outside of the container was cold.

  "Cuban. My favorite," Ellen said when she sipped it.

  "What's the difference?" Nellie asked.

  "Have a sip. It's just different than those sweet straw berry or the new peach ones," Ellen said.

  Nellie tipped it up. "Good stuff. Make a whole pitcher full and bring us some glasses. Girls, you're going to love it. Now, I'll see your five, Myra, and raise you ten. You're bluffing."

  "We'll see," Myra laughed.

  "I thought you were playing bridge," Jane said.

  "So did our husbands for the past forty years. They had poker night and we started out playing bridge like good little wives. We chased babies and changed diapers. Exchanged recipes. All those kind of things," Myra explained. "Then the kids were grown and none of us wanted to play cards on Friday anymore until Ellen came visiting and taught us to play poker. That was twenty years ago."

  "But why not just tell Slade the truth?" Jane asked.

  "He's not man enough to take it. Men folks tend to think poker is their game. Want to sit in on a few hands?"

  "I'll bartend."

  Ellen finished off the daiquiri. "You don't fool me, girl. You know how to play Texas Hold 'Em and you'd own this ranch if you played. I can see it in your eyes. Nellie can't stand losing so she'd wind up putting the ranch up on a bet and you'd own it. Sure you don't want to play, just to see Slade's face when he walks in and finds out he's working for you?"

  Jane smiled. She didn't want to play for a very good reason. If she just made drinks all evening, Myra and Jeannie would go home and only remember her as the new maid slash driver slash bartender. They might talk on the drive back to Bowie about how Nellie had done good when she hired some help, but the next time they came to play poker she would be gone and forgotten. If John came looking and she had whipped them all soundly at poker, they'd remember a lot more about her.
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  "I'll just make daiquiris. Who's the designated driver?"

  "I am. Put extra rum in mine," Jeannie laughed. "Honey, I could out-drink, out-bluff, and out-cuss a sailor. I won't wreck the pickup or get a ticket on the way home, I promise."

  Jane thought Ellen and Nellie were a rare breed. She could scarcely believe that there were two more unusual elderly women in the same neck of the woods. Had her mother lived to be an old woman, would she have been like this foursome? Was her grandmother the same kind of woman when she wasn't wearing a black suit and sitting at the head of a conference table in the oil company?

  "You know who I miss?" Myra said. "Ouch, why'd you kick me?"

  Nellie shot her a dirty look. "Foot jerked."

  Myra glanced at Jane, who'd headed for the kitchen. "Oh! Oh, my! Now I understand. Well, I'll see your twenty and raise you thirty."