“What? Do I have chili on my shirt?” he asked.
“You were fighting with yourself and you agreed with something,” Deke said.
“It happens. I do it all the time.” Allie smiled. “But back to this Lizzy thing. It’s a good plan, but don’t let it get plumb out of hand. I heard that Sharlene bragged that she’s not giving up and that she’ll knock Lizzy right out of the saddle before the festival.”
Blake laid a hand over Allie’s. “Darlin’, you don’t have to worry about Toby. He’ll never settle down to one woman. If you have to fret, do it about Lizzy, not Toby. And he’s handled overbearing Sharlene-types before.”
“In those days he could love ’em and leave ’em, though. He didn’t have to live in the same town with the woman,” Deke said.
Toby was already tired of talking this situation to death. He wanted to finish his supper, take a shower, and go get Lizzy for their ice cream date. At least this business of a pseudo-girlfriend gave him an escape.
Deke pushed back his chair and carried his bowl to the sink. “Thanks for supper, guys. I’ve still got laundry to do over at my place and some chores to get done. I’ll be gone for a couple of days starting tomorrow. Rodeos are getting geared up.”
“Don’t worry about anything. I’ll take care of your livestock and pets,” Allie told him. “You’ll be back Sunday with no hickeys, right?”
One corner of Deke’s mouth curled in half a smile. “I’ll be home real late Saturday night, maybe even up near daylight on Sunday. I’ll see y’all in church but I don’t make promises about hickeys. How ’bout you, Toby?”
Toby tightened his grip on the spoon to keep from touching the last fading mark Lizzy had put on his shoulder. Thank goodness his shirt covered it.
It wasn’t a real date, but it felt so good that Lizzy put extra care into getting ready for it. It was the first time she’d been out since Mitch broke up with her almost five months ago, on the telephone for God’s sake and on the day of her sister’s wedding and on Valentine’s Day to boot.
She showered, shaved her legs, washed her hair, and applied the whole regiment of makeup. She flipped through the hangers in her closet and chose her best pair of skinny jeans, topped off with an orange tank top. She thought about cowboy boots but the temperature was still in the nineties when she left work, so she picked out a strappy pair of sandals with a small heel.
Too antsy to sit in the living room and wait for the doorbell to ring, she opted to wait on the front porch swing. It had been painted four or five different colors down through the years, but Allie had stripped it down to the original oak wood the year before and applied several coats of varnish. The squeaky chains competed with sounds of singing birds, chirping crickets, and howling coyotes. Occasionally she heard a cow bawling from over on the Lucky Penny. The latter sounded out of place since there hadn’t been livestock over there in at least two or three decades.
The noise of an approaching truck’s engine filled the hot June night long before it appeared in the lane leading from the road up to Audrey’s Place. The sinking sun cast its glow on the shiny black club cab truck as Toby parked outside the yard fence. He stepped out and shook the legs of his creased jeans over the tops of black boots that were almost as shiny as the truck. Every pearl snap on the plaid western shirt sparkled.
He looked so different from the dirty, sweaty cowboy who had appeared in her store earlier that day and yet, both versions were sexy as the devil. His jeans were low slung on his hips and hugged his butt just right. The shirt was a basic navy button down, worn loose over a Luke Bryan concert T-shirt. She couldn’t see his eyes because of the sunglasses and the way his straw hat sat low on his forehead, but she could feel them assessing her from a distance—just like they did when he was propped up on an elbow after a bout of steamy sex on a twin-size bed. That sent a burst of desire surging through her body. She’d have to be very careful or she’d wind up losing control of her better judgment for sure.
He waved. “You aren’t going to keep me waiting. I like that.”
She stood up. “You aren’t keeping me waiting, either. I like that.”
“You’ll have to show me the way to the ice cream place. I haven’t been to Olney yet.” He escorted her from porch to truck with his hand on her lower back. “We’d better make this look real in case there’s anyone sitting in one of those scrub oak trees with binoculars.”
“That was pretty slick of you to ask me right in front of Mary Jo and Lucy,” she said.
“Did I do good?” He grinned.
“Oh, yeah. They’re the best gossip spreaders in the whole town. I imagine that someone has already called Mitch by now, and I heard that Sharlene might put a contract out on me.”
“Isn’t Mitch in Mexico?” He opened the door for her.
She hoisted herself up into the passenger’s seat. “News from here to anywhere in the world travels faster than a speeding bullet.”
“I’ll protect you, darlin’.”
Lizzy giggled. “I can protect myself. It’s you who has the problem. You might be a Dawson but that woman could eat you alive, cowboy.”
“Blake managed to dodge her, and I’m tougher than he is,” Toby countered.
“She’s honed her skills in the past five months, darlin’. You ain’t got a sinner’s chance at the pearly gates,” she told him. “Turn at the next corner. You have to drive a little slower on this route, but it’s a nice ride at this time of year.”
He backed the truck around and followed her instructions. “So tell me, Lizzy Logan, whatever made you go into the retail business for ranchers?”
“I inherited it. Granny and Grandpa had the business before I was even born. Grandpa died and Granny kept us kids so Mama and Daddy could work. He helped run the feed business and also did construction. Mama took over the convenience store. Allie followed Daddy around at construction sites, but I was never interested in hammers and nails and all that. I couldn’t wait to get off the school bus and go to the feed store where Daddy always worked the last two hours of the day,” she said. “By the time we were in high school, Allie was getting a paycheck from the construction business and I was pretty much running the store when I wasn’t in school. After graduation, the guy who’d been minding it for us retired and I took over full time.”
“You ever wish you’d gone to college or done something different?” Toby asked.
“Not one time.”
“Then I have a hard personal question. What in the hell made you think you’d be happy married to someone who was probably going to insist that you stop working and be a full-time preacher’s wife?” he asked.
The question wasn’t one she hadn’t asked herself those first few weeks after Mitch dumped her. Her job was a nine-to-five, six days a week, and pretty often if someone needed a bag of feed or some cattle medicine, she’d open up so they could get it after hours or on Sunday.
“That is definitely a hard question but I don’t have to answer it because I didn’t marry Mitch,” she said.
“Hypothetically?” He pressured.
“I wanted to get away from the stigma of Audrey’s Place so badly, Toby,” she said softly. “Even all these decades later, it’s still known as the old whorehouse. Growing up, it was hard.”
“Why? It’s colorful and it doesn’t make you a whore.”
“No but old rumors die hard in Dry Creek,” she said.
He braked so suddenly that the truck tires spun gravel every which way. “Look! Over there up against the mesquite grove. See that big buck and all those does.” His finger shot right under her nose.
Lizzy gasped at the serenity before her eyes. The buck with his head up, not a muscle moving; the does munching away on the grass, knowing they were protected and their babies wouldn’t come to harm. “Look at the fawns,” she whispered. “Aren’t they the cutest things? Sometimes a deer or two comes right up close to the fence at the back side of our property. When we were little girls we used to take a pallet out
there and watch for them in the late evening.”
The buck eyed them warily without moving a muscle. The does continued eating the new spring grass, and the fawns romped around unafraid of the strange big black truck.
“He’s protecting his family.” Toby eased his foot from the brake and drove slower.
“My turn to ask questions,” Lizzy said. “What makes you think you’ll be happy in Dry Creek? You are used to being close enough to all kinds of honky-tonks that you can party when you want. What happens when you get bored here?”
“I like to have a good time, Lizzy, but I love to ranch. It’s always been my dream to buy one and build it from scratch. But land prices are high. When the Lucky Penny came up for sale and we found out if we pooled our money we could buy it without a loan, it was a dream come true. I’ll be happy because ranchin’ makes me happy,” he said.
She pondered on that as they crossed the bridge and drove on in to Olney. Would she have found happiness if she did have to give up her store? Would she have simply settled into fitting into the mold that Mitch had carved out for her? When Toby parked in front of the Dairy Queen, she had the answers and they were both a loud hell no!
“Oh. My. God!” she muttered as he laced his fingers in hers and led her inside. “What is she doing here?”
“Who? I thought every woman in Dry Creek was at some church meeting tonight,” Toby asked.
“Mitch’s mother and her friends. I haven’t seen her since Mitch and I broke up,” Lizzy groaned.
“Get into character, darlin’,” he whispered seductively, his warm breath creating delicious shivers up and down her spine. “We can sell this. I know we can.”
“Well, hello, Elizabeth,” Mitch’s mother, Wanda, said.
“Elizabeth?” Toby chuckled.
“She hates my nickname,” Lizzy whispered.
Wanda was an elegant woman in her cute little navy blue slacks and matching powder blue sweater set that matched her cold pale blue eyes. Her thick blond hair was styled in the latest feathered back cut and not one single strand was out of place.
“Hello, Wanda.” Lizzy took three steps but didn’t let go of Toby’s hand. “I’d like you to meet my boyfriend, Toby Dawson. You may have heard that on Valentine’s Day his brother Blake and my sister Allie were married.”
“Oh, I do remember Valentine’s Day very well. Poor Mitch was distraught but I told him he had to listen to God. I’m very sorry for the way things turned out with you two, but God knows best and I’m sure that you would have never been happy outside of Dry Creek, Elizabeth. And likewise, Mitch could have never ever lived or reached his potential in that ghost town. Besides that, I’m quite sure you understand that he needs a wife without a questionable background.”
Wanda’s pasted-on smile annoyed Lizzy so badly that she wanted to slap the shit out of the woman and then slap her again for calling her Elizabeth.
Wanda held out a limp hand bedecked with diamond rings on three fingers and nails that had been freshly done in a pale pink polish. “It’s so nice to meet you. Was that Blake or Toby?”
He shook her hand and then dropped it. “Toby, ma’am. My pleasure. Now if you will excuse us, we’re going to share a banana split to celebrate this lovely spring day.”
“I’ll tell Mitch that I saw you and met your new boyfriend, Elizabeth. I can’t wait for him and his new bride to come home this summer. We’re planning a big shower at the church for them. They’ve rented a lovely villa and they need things for it.” Wanda waved as they walked away.
Lizzy wiggled her fingers in acknowledgment but didn’t look back. “I bet his mother rented that villa and I bet she’s soliciting churches for sponsorship for his mission work. And I bet dollars to cow patties that he will live like a king.”
“Jealous?”
“No, I am not. I’ve got my store and the sexiest cowboy in the whole area for a boyfriend tonight.” She smiled.
“Hey, Lizzy, where you been, girl?” the lady behind the counter asked. “I haven’t seen you in weeks.”
“Been busy. I want a banana split with whipped cream, nuts, and a cherry on the top of each dip,” she said.
“And two spoons.” Mitch reached for his wallet.
“Are you going to introduce me or just let me stand here drooling?” the cashier asked.
“I’m sorry. Wanda rattled me,” Lizzy said honestly. “Toby, darlin’, this is Cricket and, Cricket, this is my boyfriend, Toby.” It was amazing how slick that word rolled off her tongue the second time she said it.
“Well, you lucky dog.” Cricket smiled. “Y’all go on to that back booth and I’ll bring the ice cream to you. That way Wanda can’t even see you.”
“Oh, no!” Toby laid his money on the counter. “We are going to sit right there by the window so we can watch the cars go by while we eat.” He motioned to one not six feet from Wanda and her three friends.
“Brave soul!” Cricket giggled. “Brave, sexy, and smart. I like him, Lizzy. I’ll have this ready in a few minutes.”
Toby slid into the booth across from Lizzy and laid his cowboy hat beside him. When she was settled, he reached across the table, took both her hands in his, and gazed into her eyes. She leaned forward slightly and he could see two inches of cleavage along with the lacy edge of a black bra. “You are so beautiful tonight, but not as sexy as you were the last time I was in the store and you reached up on that high shelf. I bet you didn’t know that your shirt rides up when you do that and shows an inch of your lower back.”
“What are you doing?” Lizzy whispered.
He moved from his side of the booth to sit beside her. “This is much better and it will make sharing a banana split so much easier.” He pushed her hair back behind her ear and kissed her on the earlobe as he murmured, “I’m making a believer out of that woman.”
“Well, I’m sure glad that you think my bare skin is sexy.” She giggled softly and played along. “What else do you like?”
“I like an independent woman who knows how to do something other than fry meat and raise kids.”
Lizzy bit the inside of her lip to contain the laughter. “Well, thank you, Toby. I don’t think anyone has ever said romantic things like that to me before.”
“Then you’ve been dating idiots,” he said bluntly.
Lizzy could practically hear Wanda’s heart palpitations. If the woman had a cardiac arrest and rolled out onto the floor, would it be a sin to wait until Lizzy finished her banana split to call 911?
Toby eased his arm around Lizzy’s shoulders. “We’ve been doing some rough designs on the house I want to build on the Lucky Penny. Allie says she can take care of it for me. What she doesn’t do, she’ll contract out. If you were building a house, what would you want?”
Lizzy noticed that Toby had pitched his voice just loudly enough for anyone to hear.
Cricket brought their banana split, set it down, handed them each a plastic spoon, and then crossed the short distance to Wanda’s table to ask if they needed refills on their coffee. All four nodded so she went back to get a full pot.
Toby picked up a cherry and held it out to Lizzy. She bit it from the stem and returned the favor by feeding him one of hers. Then they both dipped into the ice cream and started to eat.
“I would never want another house with a second floor if I was building.” She raised her voice just enough that the old gals didn’t have to fall out of the booth when they leaned over to hear what she said. “And the simpler the better, because I hate cleaning. I do like to cook and I don’t mind laundry, but keeping things all beautifully neat is not my thing.”
“I’m capable of cooking, but I don’t enjoy it. I do like to clean because I’m the world’s biggest neat freak. We might make a good pair, Miz Lizzy Logan,” he said.
Wanda choked on her sip of coffee. It looked like she might need some CPR, and Lizzy was glad that she had no idea how to do it. Wanda finally got control of her breathing and took a sip of water before she and her croni
es put their heads together and whispered like little girls on the playground.
“So a ranch house then? That’s what Allie and I have been designing. Long, low, and with a big front porch with a swing where two people could sit and talk about their day. You could tell me how things went at the feed store and I could fill you in on all that went on at the Lucky Penny every evening,” he said.
“Why, Toby Dawson, are you proposing to me?” she said in her best sweet Southern voice.
“No, ma’am. I am not! When and if I ever do that it will be in a romantic setting like out in a field of wild daisies with the sun setting over the horizon on the Lucky Penny.” He kept eating ice cream as if they were discussing a herd of deer instead of proposals. “Tell me what else you’d do in a house? What kind of kitchen would you want?”
“Nothing big, but I would like a stove with six burners on the top and a double oven. And a window above the sink so I could see the baby calves playing out there beyond the yard fence.” Lizzy knew their conversation was only pretend, but that was exactly what she really did want—when she found the right cowboy to trust with her heart.
She’d skipped supper, so she was hungry and she ate faster than she would normally, but Toby still beat her by two spoons full.
“Let’s go home the longest way possible. We can get two cups of coffee to go and drive slow,” he said.
“Sounds good to me.” She nodded.
“And Saturday night I thought we might hit that little bar up near Wichita Falls and have a beer. Maybe dance a little leather off a pair of your pretty cowboy boots,” he said on the way to the counter.
“I’ll look forward to that the rest of the week. I haven’t been dancing in months,” she said.
With coffee in one hand, Lizzy waved at Wanda as Toby ushered her out the door and to his truck. Wanda’s evil looks sliced through the air like a hot knife through butter. Lizzy wasn’t certain if she really would be drinking beer and dancing on Saturday night, but knowing that Wanda would rush home and call Mitch to tell him put a smile on her face. Maybe this idea that had been hatched over the kitchen table at the Lucky Penny wasn’t such a bad one after all.
Hot Cowboy Nights Page 5
