Hot Cowboy Nights

by Carolyn Brown

  “Well, now that the shock of being told no has worn off and finding out that the Lucky Penny has grown by about thirty percent, let’s go take a look at our new house,” Toby said.

  Walking hand-in-hand, they were halfway to the house when Lizzy’s cell phone rang. She let go of his hand, worked it up out of the hip pocket of her skinny jeans, and answered it.

  Lizzy did not recognize the phone number but she answered it. When she heard nothing but weeping on the other end, the mesquite trees started to spin around her and the ground was coming up to meet her face when suddenly strong arms circled around her waist.

  “Lizzy, are you all right? Look at me?” His voice was husky with concern.

  “Allie, are you all right? Is it the baby?” she whispered.

  “No, it’s Myra,” the woman on the other end sobbed.

  Lizzy slid out of Toby’s arms and sat down in the grass. The dizziness did not disappear in a minute, but things slowly stood still and she found her voice. “What’s wrong, Myra?”

  “I need you, Lizzy. I don’t have anyone else and Rowdy doesn’t know what to do with me, and please, Lizzy, I caused this because of yesterday and now God is punishing me and…”

  “Where are you?”

  “At the little hospital in Olney,” she answered between violent sobs.

  “I’ll be there in thirty minutes or less. Tell them at the front desk to let me come in,” Lizzy said.

  “What’s wrong?” Toby asked.

  “I thought it was Allie. Something terrible has happened to Myra and she wants me to come to Olney. I’m so sorry, Toby. This is our engagement day but I feel like I need to go. She sounds horrible and she has no one.”

  Toby extended a hand. “Then we’ll go together. Marriage is more than hot nights between the sheets, darlin’. It’s teamwork and from right now on, we are a team. I’ll drive if you’ll tell me where to go.”

  “Thank you,” Lizzy said.

  Toby was a keeper for sure. A man who would give up his wild women for her, who didn’t bat an eye when it came to helping someone that she damn sure didn’t owe jack shit to, and who loved Lizzy the way she was without a single word about changing anything.

  When they reached the hospital, Lizzy headed for the front desk but a scrawny little fellow stepped in front of her. He had a scraggly blond mustache and his thick hair braided in two ropes that hung down his back. He wore cargo shorts, sandals, and a wrinkled plaid shirt over a tank top.

  “I’m Rowdy. Are you Lizzy?” His deep voice did not match his size.

  Lizzy nodded. “I am and this is…”

  Toby extended his hand. “I’m her fiancé as of an hour ago. I’m Toby Dawson.”

  “God, I’m glad you are here. I can’t call her parents. They’re so mad at her they’re about to disown her, and she don’t want Mitch to know where she is. The only person she said she’d talk to is you, and she’s blaming herself for losing the baby even after the doctor said it wasn’t anything that she did or didn’t do and…” He stopped to catch his breath. “She’s right down this way. I’ll show you the way.”

  Lizzy could hear the weeping before she reached the room, and her heart went out to poor Myra. Toby said they were a team and this was their first job as such, so she laced her fingers in his and pushed open the door into the hospital room.

  “Lizzy, thank you,” she whispered. “God hates me.”

  Lizzy thought about what her grandmother, her mother, and/or both her sisters would say at that moment and drew on their strength as well as her own. She let go of Toby’s hand and crossed the room to stand beside Myra’s bed.

  “God does not hate you. This is not God’s fault or yours. It’s an act of nature that happens sometimes. Don’t take the blame on yourself because you feel guilty about Mitch. He’s not worth it.”

  Myra wiped her eyes on the edge of the bedsheet. “Thank you.”

  Lizzy patted Myra on the shoulder. “This would have happened no matter where you were. You can grieve but you shouldn’t punish yourself.”

  “That’s what I’ve been telling her,” Rowdy said. “She’s got spunk. I saw it in college. And she can live with me as long as she wants. I’ve got a nice little house with two bedrooms.”

  “Okay, then. Are we all good here?” Lizzy asked.

  Myra nodded. “Thank you. Rowdy is my friend but…”

  “I understand.” Lizzy patted her one more time and circled back around the bed to lace her fingers in Toby’s. “I’d like you to meet my fiancé, Toby Dawson.”

  “Congratulations. I wondered why you had roses in your hair.”

  Lizzy touched them and smiled. “They are pretty, aren’t they? Toby gathered them from the fence and the pasture of our new ranch. And now we’re going home to tell my mama and sister that I’m engaged,” Lizzy said.

  “Thank you one more time,” Myra said. “You are an angel.”

  Lizzy giggled all the way out of the room.

  “What’s so funny?” Toby said when they were well out of hearing distance.

  “You know what they say about angels?” she asked.

  “That they have wings and a halo?”

  “No, that they are just wild women who’ve had the hell screwed out of them,” she said with another giggle.

  “Maybe that’s what turned my life around. I got the hell knocked out of me during those hot nights with you,” he said.

  “We really are a team, aren’t we?”

  “You got it, darlin’.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Good grief! What are you doing with roses in your hair?” Allie asked when Lizzy and Toby reached the house that evening.

  “What are y’all doin’ here? No, don’t answer that. I’m glad you are here because now I won’t have to make two announcements,” Lizzy said.

  “Deke is here, too, and he says he ain’t sayin’ a word until you get here. This has been the best-kept secret Dry Creek has ever had. Everyone is sitting beside their phones waiting to hear who bought Deke’s ranch and…” Allie stopped for breath. “And we’re all in the kitchen around the table. Mama made chocolate cake and homemade ice cream, but she won’t let me have any until you tell us.”

  Allie led the way to the kitchen with Lizzy and Toby behind her and talked the whole way. The heat of Toby’s hand on Lizzy’s back made her wish they were back under the willow tree or even in his tiny trailer. She could think of all kinds of ways that this teamwork could play out.

  “Where have you been? I called and it went to voice mail.” Katy looked up from the head of the table. Deke was at the other end. Blake was to her right and Allie’s chair was still pushed out from where she got up to meet them at the door.

  Fiona looked up from the chair closest to Deke. “I tried to call you a dozen times.”

  “Had to turn off the phone in the hospital,” Toby said.

  “Hospital! What happened?” The chair made a loud scraping noise as Katy got to her feet. “Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine. It wasn’t me. It was Myra. I’ll help dip ice cream and tell you what happened.” Lizzy headed for the cabinets and took a stack of bowls from the cabinet. While she and Katy filled the bowls and cut into the double layer chocolate cake, she told them the story of what had happened that evening. “And you all have to swear that Myra’s new residence does not leave this kitchen because she needs to get a hell of a lot stronger before she has to face Mitch or her parents.”

  “You are a good woman to do that for her,” Deke said. “But then we always knew there was a heart hiding down inside that stubborn streak. How’d she get away from Mitch anyway?”

  Fiona raised her hand. “I helped with that. Poor girl was scared out of her mind and wouldn’t even sit up straight in the seat until I parked in front of her friend’s house. He seemed like a good person and he didn’t ask a bunch of questions. Just took her right into the house and I turned around and came home. And now I’ve got to hurry up and eat ice cream and then get
on the road so I don’t miss my flight. Tomorrow it’s going to be back at the work grind.”

  Lizzy carried the bowls of ice cream and dessert plates of chocolate cake to the table. “I wish you could stay longer, but I’m so glad for this weekend and I’m really happy that you are here for my two announcements. This evening can be our celebration.”

  “Do the roses in your hair have something to do with one of them?” Allie asked.

  “The roses came from the barbed wire fence down by that little section of Dry Creek that still has enough water in it to…” She paused and blushed. “To go wading in. It’ll dry up in a couple of weeks. I can’t remember a time when it had water in it this late in the summer.”

  “I picked them and wound them into her pretty hair,” Toby said.

  “Who bought Deke’s ranch? Mary Jo and Nadine are on pins for me to call them and deliver the news. Money will pass hands on bets that have been made,” Allie said.

  “And I’ve got a five-dollar bill on a name, too, with four-to-one odds, so I stand to make twenty bucks if I’m right,” Fiona said.

  “I did,” Lizzy said. “Deke and I closed the deal on Friday. What’s left on the ranch belongs to me or rather to the Lucky Penny Ranch because I’m incorporating my land into the ranch.”

  Fiona let out a whoop. “I knew it and everyone said I was crazy as hell, but you would have told me if it had been anyone else but you! I’ll make Lucy Hudson send me every bit of that money.”

  Allie’s spoon stopped midway between the bowl and her mouth, and she looked at Lizzy as if she’d grown another eye right in the middle of her forehead.

  Poor old Blake was so stunned that his eyes wouldn’t blink. And Katy popped the side of her head, as if trying to make her ears work.

  The silence was deafening until Deke chuckled. “I told you that you’d be surprised.” He took a bite of his ice cream as if nothing had just happened.

  “You are shittin’ me,” Blake whispered.

  “No, she’s not,” Toby said. “Shocked the hell out of me, too, brother.”

  “Are you going to move into the house?” Allie asked.

  “I am,” Lizzy answered.

  Blake’s expression testified that he was still in shock. “And you really want to add that to the Lucky Penny?”

  “I do.”

  “Why?” Allie asked.

  “Because I want my own place and I had the money saved up, and Toby’s trailer is too damn small for two people,” she answered.

  “We’re engaged,” Toby blurted.

  “Bullshit!” Allie said.

  Fiona dropped her spoon. “I’ll be damned. You did sneak that one in on me.”

  “And this halo of roses is my engagement ring. Isn’t it pretty?”

  “Congratulations!” Deke said. “I knew it was going to happen. I just didn’t know when. I’m damn sure glad you bought that house and ranch, Lizzy. Jesus couldn’t live with you in that cramped-up trailer of Toby’s. You might have done a good deed tonight, but there’s still a lot of Logan stubborn hiding in that body of yours.”

  Toby drew her close to his side. “I’m a lucky man.”

  “Yes, you are,” Katy said. “I’ll add my congratulations to Deke’s, but there’s sadness in my heart because my last baby girl is leaving Audrey’s Place.”

  “Maybe someday Fiona will come back to Dry Creek.” Lizzy looked across the room at her sister.

  “Hell will freeze over before that happens.” Fiona smiled. “But congratulations, sister. I thought this might happen on down the road, but I did not see this coming this quickly.”

  Allie groaned. “Please tell me we aren’t going to have to endure the wedding book again.”

  Lizzy laughed and leaned her head on Toby’s shoulder. “No, ma’am. No wedding book. No big wedding. Friday night y’all come over to my new house and we’ll have a preacher there. Blake and Allie can stand up with us. Mama, you and Deke can be the witnesses. Or we can go to the courthouse one afternoon and it will all be done. You sure you can’t stay until then, Fiona?”

  “No, darlin’. As much as I’d love to be here, I’ve got to get back to work or I won’t have a job, and I do like to eat so I have to make money,” Fiona said.

  “Friday night sounds good to me,” Blake said. “Whew! My mind is still reeling. Have you told our mama, Toby?”

  “Not yet but I will,” Toby said.

  “No more bars and chasin’ women?” Deke sighed. “I’ve lost the best bar buddy I ever had.”

  “Yep, you sure did.” Toby nodded. “But Jud will be here in the fall and I’m sure he will be ready to take on that role.”

  “I’m not complainin’. I got my sassy sister back,” Allie said.

  “Yep, you sure did.” Lizzy grinned.

  On Friday night, after work, Lizzy hurried home to Audrey’s Place for the last time. She dressed in a white eyelet lace sundress that skimmed the tops of her new bright blue cowboy boots with lace insets on the tops. Sitting still while her mother wove fresh white daisies and a few wild flowers into her hair was not easy.

  “Stop fidgeting,” Katy said.

  “She’s more nervous than I was,” Allie said.

  “You were marrying a wild cowboy and you’d tamed him. I’m marryin’ the hot cowboy in the Dawson family and I’m not even his type,” Lizzy smarted off.

  “Oh, honey, the way he eats you up with those blue eyes, I’d say his type changed drastically when he came to this part of Texas,” Katy said. “I’m going to miss you, baby girl.”

  “I’m not the baby girl. Fiona is and I’m tellin’ you she’ll get tired of that big city shit someday and show up here in Dry Creek,” Lizzy told them. “It’s perfect, Mama. Just what I wanted. We’ve got fifteen minutes until we need to be at the house. Have you got any last-minute advice for me?”

  “Never go to bed angry. Always talk to each other. Never talk about each other behind the other one’s back, unless it’s to your sister or to me. We can still love Toby even when he makes you mad as hell, and we’ll listen to you vent without judging either of you. But remember if you vent, then we have the right to tell you if it’s you who’s wrong in the fight.”

  “How about you, Allie? You got anything to say?”

  “I’m still worried that this is too fast, but like Mama says, he looks at you like Blake does me and I believe with all my heart and soul that Dawson men can be trusted. So go get ’em, sister. I’m just glad that you’ll be living right next door to me and you aren’t moving off to Wichita Falls or Mexico,” Allie answered. “And I wish Fiona could be here.”

  Toby plowed all day, took a quick shower, and dressed in creased jeans, shined black boots, and a white pearl snap shirt. That’s as fancy as Lizzy wanted him to be and he was fine with her decision. He’d picked a huge bouquet of roses that day, and with Allie’s help they’d wrapped blue satin ribbon around the stems to hold it together for Lizzy.

  He’d never been so nervous in his entire life. He combed his dark hair back, looked at the reflection in the mirror above the sink, and told the man staring back at him that he was the luckiest son of a gun in the whole world. Tonight he and Lizzy would start their married life in their new house.

  Their ugly house as she called it but there wasn’t one thing ugly about it to Toby. The walls might need some paint and they had very little furniture, but it was their home, the place where they’d love, argue, make up, hopefully raise kids, and someday even see grandkids coming around to visit. Nothing with that much potential could be ugly.

  “Been where you are and know how you are feelin’.” Blake leaned against the doorjamb into the pink bathroom.

  “I want it to be done with so I know she’s mine,” Toby said.

  “Never thought I’d hear those words out of your mouth.”

  “Me, either. I hear a vehicle. Is it the preacher or the ladies?”

  “One. Two. Three. Four.” Blake counted off the doors as they slammed. “I’d say it’s both
. If you are going to change your mind, now is the time to run.”

  “Hell, no! I’ve never wanted anything more in my life,” Toby said.

  “Then get married and get on with living.”

  Someone knocked on the door and Blake opened it. The preacher stood there with a Bible in one hand and the marriage license in the other.

  “Come right in,” Blake said.

  Blue looked up from the corner of the living room and growled.

  “Does that dog bite?” the preacher asked.

  “No, he’s only protecting his new harem of kittens. The mama cat is somewhere in the house, but he’s adopted those babies and thinks they are his. Long as you don’t try to take one of them, he’s fine,” Toby explained.

  “Katy says we are to stand in front of that fireplace right there. Deke is to sit on the…”

  “I’m right here.” Deke rushed into the house through the kitchen door. “Cow got out so I’m a little bit late, but I’m cleaned up and ready to do my part. I see Lizzy brought the cats home.”

  “She wanted Blue and the cats to be in the house for the wedding.” Toby grinned.

  “You are to sit on one of the folding chairs and Katy will sit in the other one,” the preacher pointed. “I hear them on the porch. So gentlemen, take your places.”

  Katy came in first, crossed over to her chair and sat down. Then Allie arrived wearing a sweet little blue sundress and carrying a bouquet of wildflowers from the pasture. Right behind her was Lizzy, Toby’s Lizzy, in a white dress, carrying the roses he’d picked for her. He was afraid to blink for fear she would disappear.

  She handed her mother her bouquet, took his hands in hers, and looked up into his eyes. “Toby Dawson, I never meant to fall in love with you, but I did and it was the right thing to do because my heart is at peace with it. I’m not arguing with myself. I’m not changing myself and I don’t want to change you. God sent you to me at the right time, and I’m damn sure not going to argue with God. So tonight I’m going to vow to love, honor, and respect you. I’m going to vow to protect this love with all my strength and soul, and if you die before I do, promise me you’ll drag your feet a little when you start up the stairs to the Pearly Gates because I swear I’ll be with you in a day or two. Because I can live without you Toby, but I don’t want to.”