Hot Cowboy Nights

by Carolyn Brown

  “I’m sorry,” Toby said.

  “For what? Y’all ain’t really dating. Lizzy is a good sport and no one would have even known…Oh. My. God!” Deke slumped down into an overstuffed chair in the lobby. “Pretend is over and you are dating, aren’t you? That’s the only thing that would keep you from taking those two up on an afternoon of fun and games.”

  “Yes, we are,” Toby said.

  “And if you tell anyone, especially Allie, I will make sure they never find your body or bones,” Lizzy said.

  “Dammit! I lost a good bar buddy.” Deke stood up, shoulders slumped in a grown-man pout. “Let’s go see your granny, Lizzy. You know she wouldn’t like this idea one bit. She wasn’t a bit happy with Allie for marryin’ Blake.”

  “I’m dating him, not marrying him,” Lizzy said.

  Black garbage sacks were stacked up at the foot of Irene’s bed. She was sitting in the middle of a bare mattress encased in a plastic protective cover. “It’s about damn time y’all got here. I called the moving company hours ago. You just can’t get good help this day and age. I swear to God, I’d send you on your way if I didn’t need you to take me home so bad.”

  “Granny, I’m Lizzy, not the moving company.” Lizzy moved to the side of the bed and tried to hug her grandmother.

  “Don’t you touch me, woman. I’ll scream and the prison guards will come and throw you in a dungeon,” Irene yelled. “You are here to take me home, not hugging me and trying to talk me into staying. I’ve served my time for falling in love with Walter and it’s time to get out of this prison.”

  “Granny, let’s visit for a little while first.” Lizzy bit her lip to keep from weeping. Life was so unfair. Her grandmother had been such a force before the dementia. Walter had lived on the Lucky Penny more than thirty years ago, and evidently she’d fallen in love with him. Whether it went beyond a crush and flirtation, no one knew. But today her granny thought she’d been sentenced to prison for whatever happened.

  “Take me home, please.” Irene’s blank eyes captured Lizzy’s as she begged.

  “Lizzy, it’s not possible,” Deke whispered.

  “Only for a day or two so she won’t feel like this,” Lizzy said softly.

  “Talk where I can hear you,” Irene demanded.

  “Let’s talk about this outside,” Toby said.

  “Irene, do you remember me?” Deke pulled up a chair and sat down beside the bed. “I’m Deke. I help Allie with her construction jobs and own a little spread in Dry Creek and do some rodeo touring. Remember?”

  Toby looped his arm through Lizzy’s and led her out into the hallway.

  “Hell, no, I have never met any of you. You are here to take me home. Where is Dry Creek? I live at Audrey’s Place,” Irene said.

  Tears streamed down Lizzy’s face and Toby held her close to his chest. “Your mama told you that this happens. Is this the first time you’ve seen it?”

  She nodded.

  “Lizzy, you can’t take her home. She doesn’t even know where home is. Tomorrow she won’t even remember this,” Toby said.

  Toby was only trying to console her, but something rebelled right there in the hallway outside her grandmother’s room. Maybe it was the flirty waitress or those two hussies who’d met them in the lobby. Or the fact that the brazen twins made her feel so dowdy and ugly. But something triggered a bomb in her heart and it exploded.

  “Don’t tell me what I can or cannot do with my own grandmother.” She pushed away from him and folded her arms over her chest. “You can’t begin to understand how helpless I feel. She took care of me. She wiped my nose when I had a cold. She cooked for me, cleaned my room so I wouldn’t get in trouble, and I can’t do a thing for her. She wants to go home, Toby.”

  The light above her grandmother’s door flashed on and two nurses jogged down the hall. They entered the room with Lizzy and Toby right behind them. Deke was in the corner with his hands up like a villain in an old western movie. Irene had made a gun out of her thumb and forefinger and had it pointed right at his crotch.

  “Look what he’s done to my room. He’s trying to kidnap me. He even took the sheets off my bed.” Irene holstered her imaginary pistol and looked past Lizzy at Toby. “He was with him. They were going to rob me.”

  “You two get on out of here and we’ll deal with you later,” the older nurse said with authority in her voice. “You’ll probably do jail time over this. What about this young lady? Was she in on it? Who put all your stuff in these bags, Miz Irene?”

  “No, they did it all. She’s my granddaughter, Allie.” Irene sat down in a rocker and frowned. “Or is it Fiona. Yes, this one is Fiona. I haven’t seen her in ten years and she looks like her sister. I’ll sit right here while y’all put all my stuff away. Fiona, you make up that bed so I can have a nap.”

  “We’ll take care of it,” the nurse said.

  Irene cocked her head to one side and then the lights went out. She’d been frantic one second and now the muscles in her face were slack and her eyes dull. “Who are all you people?”

  “We are the cleaning crew. We’ll have everything put to rights in just a few minutes,” the older lady said.

  “I wanted to take her home for a couple of days,” Lizzy whispered.

  The younger one shook her head. “Not a good idea.”

  Irene stared blankly out the window, a smile tickling the corners of her mouth. “When you girls get this room in order, you should go out there and hoe the weeds from the garden.”

  “Yes, ma’am, we will get right on that,” the nurse said.

  “Who are you, again? And why aren’t you helping taking care of this mess you made?” Irene looked straight at Lizzy and the smile disappeared.

  “She’s our supervisor,” the younger nurse answered.

  “I see. I’m sleepy. You can go now. You trained these two pretty good,” Irene told her.

  “Thank you.” Lizzy bit back the tears as she left the room.

  Deke and Toby were in the lobby, sitting on the sofa and talking so low she couldn’t hear them. Could it be they were regretting not going with those women? All the anger inside her at not being able to do a blessed thing rose to the top, and she marched right up to Deke and held out her hand.

  “What?” he asked.

  “Give me your truck keys. I’m going home. You can ride back to Dry Creek with Toby or the two of you can do what you wanted to do all along.”

  “And what did we want to do?” Toby asked.

  “Just go. Have a great time with the booty bitches. I’ll leave the keys under the floor mat so you don’t even have to come in the house,” she said.

  Deke handed her the keys and she nodded toward a nurse’s aide who rushed over and hit the code to let her out. It was like a jail. Granny couldn’t come and go when she wanted. The windows were locked so she couldn’t raise them to get a breath of fresh air. No wonder she was losing the last thread of her memories and life.

  By the time Lizzy had adjusted the driver’s seat to fit her small frame, tears streamed down her face. One look in the rearview let her know she was a complete mess with long streaks of dark mascara and light blue eyeliner running down her cheeks and dripping onto the ecru lace top. It was probably ruined but Lizzy didn’t give a damn. At least she could walk out of that place and inhale the wonderful aroma of the air after a summer rain.

  She was still sniffling when she pulled into the driveway at Audrey’s Place. Sitting in the truck with the window rolled down, she imagined the original ladies who lived in the house sprawled out on the porch steps with fans. The madam of those women would be her ancestor.

  Granny’s great-grandmother had built the place for a hotel with her husband. Then he died and the Depression hit and the rest was history. When she shut down the brothel, she married the local deputy and they had a daughter who lived in the house until she died. It had been passed down from one generation to the next and someday Lizzy might inherit it.

  Her mind and hea
rt were at war with each other as her thoughts went from one subject to another. She could have been like those two women in the nursing home if Audrey’s Place had been a brothel for a few more generations, so what right did she have to judge them? They’d had a good time with Deke and Toby in the past. So much for forgetting the past like she’d preached about to Toby.

  Lizzy groaned when she remembered where she’d heard those two bimbos’ names. They’d been the cause of a major fight between Allie and Blake. Allie had gone over to the Lucky Penny to work and found those two women in the house.

  “But there it is. Poor old gals didn’t have any idea that the playboy they’d had so much fun with was trying to force himself up out of the mold,” she said.

  She got out of the truck and put the keys under the mat, walked up on the porch, and sat down in the swing. Five minutes later the sound of a truck engine got louder and louder until finally it was sitting in her front yard.

  Both doors opened. Deke waved, went to his vehicle, and drove down the lane. Toby leaned against the fender of Blake’s truck. Arms folded tightly across that broad expanse of chest, he stared out across the pasture and didn’t even glance toward the porch. That he was angry was an understatement. That he had a right to be madder than a wet hen after a tornado hit was a guaranteed fact.

  She’d had no right to turn on him in her fit of anger. Even less to demand that Deke hand over the keys to his truck so she could drive home alone. No doubt, he was trying to form the words to tell her to go straight to hell because he didn’t need to be in a relationship with anyone as immature as Lizzy Logan.

  Planting her feet on the porch, she inhaled deeply and stopped. This was not Toby’s fault and he deserved an apology. The longest journey she’d ever made in her life was from the front porch, across the yard, and to the big black truck. Toby drew her to him like a magnet with his clear blue eyes.

  With her eyes locked with his, she stopped three feet away. “I’m sorry. None of what happened today was your fault. I was upset about my grandmother, and I took it all out on you and that was unfair.”

  He opened his arms and she walked into them. “Deke says that a fight doesn’t mean that the relationship is over.”

  “I hope not.” She listened to his heartbeat. It represented something steady, true, and dependable.

  “Then we are good?” he asked.

  She nodded. “Yes, we are.”

  He ran his knuckles down her jawline and tipped her face up. She barely had time to moisten her lips before his mouth closed over hers. The kiss was different from any they’d shared before. Words could never describe the raw hunger in it. She leaned into it, losing her heart and soul to him.

  “After that kiss,” he said when he drew back, “this is about as unromantic as anything can be. But would you like to go with me to do chores and then we could fire up the grill and make some burgers?”

  He could have asked her to go face off with the skunk again and she would have agreed. “Yes,” she said. “But I do need to go inside and change clothes.”

  “I’ll be waiting on the swing.” He smiled.

  That simple smile said they’d taken another baby step in their relationship.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Lizzy stripped out of her Sunday best and tossed it on the rocking chair. She pulled a faded army green tank top from the clean laundry basket and jerked it down over her head. When she opened the closet door to find a pair of faded jeans, she caught sight of her reflection and moaned.

  White cotton panties looked downright dowdy.

  She opened her underwear drawer to find another dozen pair of soft white hip huggers mixed up with bras and a slip that she hadn’t worn in years. After she’d tossed every one of them out one by one into the clean laundry basket she found one pair of silky bikini panties hiding in the back of the drawer. They were hot pink with black lace trim, and she had no idea how they got there or if they even belonged to her. Maybe Fiona had left them behind when she moved away from Dry Creek and Allie put them there as a joke. It didn’t matter where, what, or who. They were a helluva lot better than white cotton.

  It was an important night that warranted something more than plain panties. She’d never had makeup sex before and she wanted it to be special. She removed her underpants and pulled on the sexier ones.

  She flipped her hair up into a ponytail and sprayed a bit of perfume on her wrists. Her heart raced as she made her way down the stairs and out onto the porch. What if he wasn’t there? What if he changed his mind? What if that kiss had not affected him like it did her?

  Her fears and questions disappeared when he smiled at her from the swing. “You should model for country magazines.”

  “You are full of shit, Toby Dawson.”

  “Not me, darlin’. I’m speakin’ the pure unadulterated truth here. Put you up next to a brand-new John Deere tractor in an advertisement and I bet the sales for that month would triple. You ready to go check on cows and then do some grillin’?” He settled his hat on his head and crooked his arm.

  She slipped hers through it and was only slightly amazed at the quiver in her hormones. It was Toby Dawson, for God’s sake! If she didn’t feel a little something, it would mean she had died and this was a dream.

  At dusk they were sitting in two old green folding lawn chairs behind the trailer. Blue had taken up the space between them, content if either or both of them scratched his ears every few minutes.

  Toby was in the process of moving the hot dogs and burgers from the grill to a platter when Deke rounded the end of the trailer. He pulled a third chair along behind him, popped it open, and sat down with a sigh.

  “We’re okay, Deke,” Toby said.

  “I know that. If you weren’t you wouldn’t be sitting here making eyes at each other,” he answered.

  “Then what’s your problem?” Toby asked.

  “I’ve got the opportunity of a lifetime right in front of me and I can’t do it unless I sell my ranch,” he said. “Don’t suppose you want to buy it do you?”

  “No!” Lizzy said so loud that Blue yipped and scampered up under the trailer. “You can’t sell out and move. Allie would be devastated and so would I. You are the pesky brother we never had.”

  “I didn’t say anything about leaving. The ranch across the road is going up for sale in sixty days. The one that belongs to my cousin, Lake, and his wife, Gloria. He should have realized that she was a city girl when he married her, but then he never much liked ranchin’, either.” Deke eyed the grill. “I hope you made enough for an extra mouth at the table tonight. I’m hungry.”

  “Always,” Toby said. “Keep tellin’ us about this big opportunity.”

  “I’ve always wanted that ranch, but my grandparents left that to him and the one I have to me. He’s let it run down in the past five years so I could buy it for what I could get out of mine if I could find a buyer in sixty days,” Deke answered.

  “Let’s take this food inside so we don’t have to fight the ants and flies for it.” Toby closed the lid to the grill and picked up the platter. He led the way and Lizzy and Deke followed him.

  Lizzy set about getting the rest of the food out of the refrigerator and the cabinets while Toby filled three glasses with ice and sweet tea. “Why would you buy a rundown ranch when yours is in good condition?”

  “It’s the place that actually belonged to my grandparents. It’s got more land than mine, and I could run more cattle and I’ve always wanted to have rodeo stock. I could start small with only a few wild bulls and a half dozen good broncs and build up from there. I’m never going to be a world-class rider on either one, but if I had some good stock I could enjoy the rodeos and make some money with it right up until I was too damned old to get around without a walker,” he said.

  Toby motioned for Deke to make himself a burger or a hot dog. “I’d love to buy it since it adjoins this ranch, but we’re stretched as thin as we can go. If it was five years down the road, I’d snap it up in a
minute.”

  “So exactly how big is your spread? I don’t think I ever asked.” Lizzy set about making a hot dog with chili, cheese, mustard, and relish. She would have loved to have a big spoonful of chopped onions on it, but those low-riding bikini underpants reminded her that there could be something special later on that evening. And onions should not be a part of it. Still when Deke spread a full inch-thick layer of onions on his burger, she envied him.

  “It’s a section of land. Butts right up to the Lucky Penny, acre for acre. Runs from the road back as far as this place. Guess I’ll fix up a flyer and put it in your store and down at your mama’s place. If it’s meant to be, then it will sell. If not, then someone else will get the one I’ve always wanted.” Deke bit into the burger. “Man, this is good. I’m glad I came over here.”

  Lizzy’s mind ran in circles as she ate her hot dog. What with Fiona divorced and barely getting by, maybe she could talk her into moving back to Dry Creek. Fiona could be the one who inherited Audrey’s Place and kept it in the family name. True, Deke’s ranch was not built around the old well, but it already had a house on it and lots of property. If Lizzy couldn’t find time to run cattle, she could lease it back to Deke or even to Toby.

  That is the most asinine thing you’ve ever let play out in your head. Think about makeup sex. Think about anything but buying a damn ranch that will make you old before your time. You are a feed store woman, not a ranchin’ woman.

  “Hush!” she said.

  “Which one of us,” Toby asked.

  “She’s fighting with voices in her head. I know these Logan women. I only hope they don’t end up like Granny Irene. So who are you thinkin’ might be interested in my place?” Deke talked between bites.

  “I heard that Dora June and Truman’s oldest daughter was hunting a place,” Lizzy answered.