“Well, shit!” she yelped when she realized the good hoops were still in her pocket. “And I mean that in every sense of the word.”
The hoops weren’t even wet, but her hands were slippery, so she carefully carried them to the kitchen and laid them on the cabinet. When she’d washed up with soap and dried completely, she picked up the first earring and carefully cleaned it with a bit of alcohol on a paper towel.
That’s when she saw the inscription on the inside.
I love you was engraved on one; Forever and ever on the other one.
Wearing only her underpants and a dirty shirt, she carried them up to Mason’s room and gently laid them back in their place.
***
Poker night usually involved five to eight guys, but that night only Colton, Lucas, Greg, and Mason were around the table in the kitchen at Greg’s house. Mason had a decent hand, but he couldn’t concentrate. He had had a moment of anger and he stood by his decision about the chores the girls had to do to atone. But the guilt about feeling something for another woman was gone. And he found himself on a guilt trip because he didn’t feel guilty. Add that to the picture of Annie Rose embedded in his mind, of that cute little rounded butt bending over to take something from the oven, her flashing blue eyes when she was happy, and even the way her hand fit so well in his… well, it damn sure made for a mixed-up set of complicated emotions.
Greg poked him on the arm. “You’re as nervous as a cat in heat. What’s going on?”
“Nothing. The girls pierced two goats’ and a tomcat’s ears today,” he said.
Lucas slapped his leg. “I’d let you win if I could see that.”
“I videoed the whole episode. I’ll bring it to the next poker game if you really want to see it,” Mason said. “And don’t laugh. You’ve got twin girls on the way and they’ll even have an older brother to help them get into mischief.”
Lucas’s expression changed instantly. “Damn. I hadn’t thought about having a set of twins like yours. I figured little girls would be all sugar and spice and hair bows and sweetness.”
“Think again,” Mason said.
“So is the new nanny still in good graces?” Colton asked.
“You didn’t tell us much at the picnic. Doc Emerson said she had a case of amnesia. Is she remembering anything?” Greg asked.
“Most everything. She was running from an abusive boyfriend. Nicky Trahan.”
Greg tossed in a few chips. “The one that got killed in that plane crash? The oil well Trahans that think they’re the Louisiana mob or something like that?”
“That’s the one. Anyway, it’s all over now and she’s safe.”
“And the girls haven’t run her off in what? Ten days?”
“Nine,” Mason said.
“That’s almost a record, isn’t it?” Greg asked.
“We went fourteen once when they were real little.” Mason grinned. “They think she’s their new mother and they mind her better than they did the other nannies. Besides, she’s damn good with them.”
“She looks like she could have birthed them,” Colton said.
“They are spittin’ images of my mother,” Mason said.
“So?” Lucas wiggled his eyebrows.
“What?” Mason raised one dark eyebrow.
Greg pushed back his chair and went to get four more beers from the refrigerator. “It’s way past time for you to move on, Mason. It’s been eight years. That’s long enough to mourn.”
“This is supposed to be a poker game, not a therapy session.” Mason chuckled.
“Then get your head in the game and stop giving us your money. We want to feel like we won something, not stole it from you,” Lucas said.
It was past eleven when he drove away from Greg’s place and headed back south to Bois D’Arc Bend. He crawled out of the truck and stumbled over a pair of rubber boots inside the door. O’Malley strutted down the steps and weaved around his legs as he set boots, sandals, and shoes against the far wall. When he reached down to rub the cat’s ears, he realized that the diamond earring was gone.
“Well, that didn’t last long. So now there is a high-dollar diamond out there in the hay barn or shining out in the pasture for a crow to eat?” Mason grumbled.
The cat ran into the den and Mason followed, figuring that he was on his way to the back door, but O’Malley jumped up on the back of the sofa and began to give his long, fluffy tail a good washing.
Mason started to pet him again, and there was Annie Rose asleep on the sofa. Blond hair fanned out on a throw pillow. Lashes resting on her delicate cheeks. Nightshirt with a faded Betty Boop on the front. She sighed and shifted positions, rolled over on her side, put a hand under the pillow, and drew her knees up. The nightshirt shifted, flashing bright red lacy underpants.
Annie Rose was surely a contradiction. Faded nightshirt and sexy panties. Just thinking about touching those full, ripe lips made his breath come in short gasps and put him into instant semiarousal. Common sense said that he should cover her with one of the throws from the rack over beside the fireplace and go directly to his bedroom. Desire said to wake her with a kiss. She looked uncomfortable in that position. If he didn’t move her to the bedroom, she’d have a sore neck the next morning. If he was gentle, she wouldn’t even wake up when he laid her on her bed and covered her with the edge of the bedspread.
She didn’t fight him or even stiffen up when he picked her up, but snuggled down into his chest and wrapped one arm around his neck. She mumbled something when he kicked the door open with his foot and O’Malley ran in ahead of him, hopped up on the rocking chair, and curled up in a ball.
“Damn cat!” she mumbled.
Her eyes were still shut.
“Damn goats!” she said clearly.
Her eyes moved rapidly behind her eyelids. She was dreaming about the tomcat and the goats. Mason tried to put her on the bed, but she held on tightly and said, “Don’t go.”
He checked and she was still sleeping. He stretched out beside her and she rolled toward him, throwing a leg over his body. He kissed her on the forehead and her eyes flew wide open.
“Mason?”
“Well, it ain’t Superman.” He chuckled.
Her arms went around his neck and she tangled her fingers into his dark hair, pulling his lips to hers. “I missed you sitting on the swing with me,” she whispered.
His hands slipped under her shirt and her skin was every bit as soft as he’d imagined. She groaned softly when he massaged the muscles between her shoulders and almost purred when he moved one hand around to cup a breast. It didn’t fill his big hand, but touching her hardened him until the pressure ached behind the zipper of his jeans.
She arched against him and that gesture assured him that she wanted him as badly as he did her. He slipped the nightshirt up over her head and she pressed her body against him as he strung kisses from forehead, down to her lips, where he followed one steamy kiss with another until they were both panting.
“Daddy, are you home?” Lily’s voice floated down the stairs.
“Shit!” he muttered.
Annie Rose pushed away from him and grabbed her nightshirt. “That squeaky step rattled. They’re coming downstairs. Go to the kitchen and I’ll meet you there.”
He rolled off the bed, and when the girls reached the kitchen, he had his head inside the refrigerator. That didn’t help a damn bit, but he had remembered to jerk his shirt out to cover the bulge in his jeans. “You should be asleep,” he said.
“Gabby woke up and she woke me up and we’re sorry about Mama’s earrings,” Lily said.
“You are still going to be punished because you took something without asking. Gabby is going to straighten the tack room and Lily is going to weed the flowerbeds. All of them, not just the ones in the front yard,” he said.
Annie Rose’s hair wa
s all messy and her lips were bee-stung when she wandered into the kitchen. He couldn’t take his eyes off her legs or stop imagining them wrapped around his naked body.
“Mama-Nanny, did you hear what we have to do because we took things without asking?” Lily asked.
“Yes, I did and you are getting off easy.”
“Tell him not to make us do chores. We said we were sorry,” Gabby whined.
“Sorry, darlings. I’d make you do more than that. Now get on back to bed where you belong. You’ll need your rest so you’ll have the energy to do your chores in the morning,” Annie Rose said.
“All right,” they said at the same time.
Chapter 13
Static electricity bounced around in the room when Annie Rose and Mason locked gazes, but neither one made a move. O’Malley darted across the kitchen floor and meowed at the kitchen door.
“Hey, you want something to eat? How about a bowl of ice cream?” Annie Rose asked.
“You talking to me or that pesky cat that has already lost his high-dollar earring?” Mason asked.
“He’s not getting ice cream if he can’t take care of an earring. And I thought maybe ice cream would cool us both down,” she said.
“I’d rather have a cold beer,” Mason said.
“You’re right. That does sound a hell of a lot better than ice cream,” she said.
He took two from the refrigerator and motioned for her to follow him out to the porch. They both sat down on the swing and Mason used the heel of his boot to kick-start it into motion.
“Nicky hated to kiss me after I drank a beer.”
Mason leaned over and kissed her hard on the lips. “He was a fool. You taste like a bit of heaven.”
“He’s gone. Door closed and I don’t want to think about him anymore, but I do, and when I do, it makes me angry. Does Holly do that to you?”
“Tonight she did. I broke her picture.”
“We’ve both got a lot of baggage, don’t we?”
“You ready to throw yours into the pond?” he answered her question with another one.
“I am, but will that keep the memories from popping up?”
“Probably not, but it will keep us from letting them control either one of us. I’m ready to move forward with my life. I figured it out tonight at the poker game.”
“Reckon the bad memories for me and the good ones for you will get fainter and come around to haunt us less and less?”
“Oh, yeah. And I think that we are helping each other with that issue more than we realize right now. We should go back to bed now,” he said softly.
“I’d like that, but there’s two little girls who aren’t asleep yet, and if we got interrupted again, darlin’, I’m afraid their chore list would last a whole week.” She kissed him on the cheek and started toward the door.
“Annie Rose?” he said.
She turned.
“I wanted to see your face one more time tonight. The moonlight dancing off your hair is beautiful,” he said.
She smiled. “Thank you. I’ll take that and the feel of your hands on my body with me into my dreams.”
“If you can sleep, that’s a hell of a lot more than I’ll be able to do,” he said.
***
Mason flipped the light switch on in his bedroom and the lucky shirt went to the laundry basket. His jeans and socks joined it, and he adjusted the water for a quick shower. A towel wrapped around his hips hung like a low-slung loincloth and his hair was still wet when he realized that the picture was back on the chest of drawers and there was no glass on the floor. He peeked inside the jewelry box, and there were the hoops and the diamond stud in their right places.
He dropped the towel, pulled on a pair of lounge pants, and curled up on his big, empty king-sized bed alone. Sleep was a long time coming, and when it did, it brought such vivid dreams of Annie Rose that he awoke the next morning with a painful erection that took fifteen minutes in a cold shower to ease.
Chapter 14
Annie Rose was already dressed and breakfast was cooking when he made it to the kitchen. He caught her at the kitchen sink and slipped his arms around her waist from behind, drawing her back to his chest and breathing in the fragrance of her shampoo on her hair and the first morning coffee on her breath.
“Thank you,” he said.
“For what?” she asked.
“Thank you for putting the jewelry back. How did you get the girls to agree to it?”
“I didn’t ask them. I did a swap on the goats with some junk jewelry I had in my suitcase. They can think that O’Malley lost the stud. You might need to put the little box in another place though, so they won’t know,” she answered.
“Why?”
“Because that is some very valuable jewelry.”
He kissed her on the ear. “No, why did you do it?”
“Because goats don’t need expensive hoops and the cat would have lost that diamond and that was just plain crazy, and”—she inhaled deeply—“you were upset about not having them as a reminder of Holly.”
“How did you manage it?” he asked, wanting to stay in that position all day, wanting to listen to her voice until daylight softened into dusk.
“Roping a goat isn’t a lot different than roping a calf. You get the loop around them, tie their legs together, and then change out the earring. Let me tell you something, Mason. Those goats put up a worse fight than a calf. Jeb is a strong old boy. He gave me a run for my money. My jeans are on a second washing to get the goat crap off the rear end, and he tried to bite me. He must’ve been attached to that hoop,” she said.
“In the dark? You managed all that in the pitch-black night?”
“The moon was shining, but I can tell you that the old tomcat wasn’t any trouble at all compared to the goats. He seemed grateful to be rid of his jewelry. They didn’t want to give theirs up.”
He heard the girls coming down the stairs and took a step back. “Well, thank you again.”
The third stair step squeaked and he quickly kissed her, tasting the coffee on her lips before he crossed the kitchen in a couple of long strides and poured a cup for himself.
“Daddy, did you change your mind?” Lily asked. “We really are sorry.”
Gabby was right behind her. “We promise to never, ever do it again.”
“I didn’t change my mind, so eat a good breakfast. I expect the jobs will take most of the morning, and you’ll need lots of energy,” he said.
“Mama-Nanny, help us out,” Lily begged.
“I love you both, but growing up means that you are accountable for your actions,” Annie Rose said.
“But, Daddy, you never punish us,” Gabby wailed.
“It looks like maybe I was amiss if you think you can take things without asking. Punishment stands. After breakfast put on old clothes and get after it. Annie Rose and I will inspect the jobs, and if they aren’t done right, then you’ll have to do them over,” Mason said.
“Well, shit! Damian was right. Mamas are meaner than nannies, and they make Daddies mean too,” Lily grumbled.
Mason pointed at her. “Be careful with that language, young lady, or you’ll be doing another job this afternoon.”
O’Malley meowed at the back door and Mason opened it for him. The tomcat weaved in and out of his legs.
Lily slapped both hands on her cheeks. “Oh no, O’Malley has done lost his earring. You aren’t going to make me do more work because he lost it, are you?”
“No, that’s his fault, not yours,” Mason said.
“Well praise the Lord,” Gabby whispered.
“Thank you for backing me up. It’s not been easy to punish them all these years,” Mason whispered when the girls headed toward the kitchen table.
“You did the same for me with the playpens, remember?” She smiled.
<
br /> ***
“Can we have waffles for breakfast?” Gabby asked from the table.
“Not this morning. I’ve already made omelets and sausage gravy. Waffles wouldn’t give you enough energy for this morning,” Annie Rose said. “The biscuits will be done in five minutes, so rush upstairs and put on your work clothes. That way you can get right at your jobs when you are done eating.”
They sighed and stomped up the steps, grumbling under their breath the whole way. When she heard the doors to their rooms slam, she sat down in Mason’s lap and drew his lips down to hers for a long, lingering kiss.
“Do they really have to work all morning?” She broke the kiss and laid her cheek against his chest, listening to the rapid beat of his heart.
“Did they have to clean up the playpens before breakfast?” he asked.
“United we stand. Divided we fall. It’s not easy being a mama-nanny.”
Or being a woman who wants you so bad she can hardly bear it, she thought.
His lips erased any more words, and his hands found their way up under her shirt, putting an end to any more thoughts. The kisses went from soft and sweet to hard and demanding, ending abruptly when the girls started back down the stairs.
“They have to sleep sometime,” he whispered.
She jumped up from his lap and was taking the biscuits from the oven when the twins plopped down at the table for the second time that morning.
***
Mason whistled as he rolled up his sleeves and got ready to haul small bales of hay to the barn closest to the house. He and his foreman, Skip, had unloaded and stacked two truckloads by midmorning, and the summer help was on their way back to the field to load up again. He propped a boot on the side of the barn and watched the girls hauling water from the house to the goat pens.
“I’m damn sure worried about you.” Skip lit a cigarette and chose a spot downwind from Mason. “That new nanny has got your head in a spin. I can tell, and it scares me. She might be good with the girls, but she could be up to something, Mason. A woman does not show up on the porch for no reason. She could be working a scam on you.”
How to Marry a Cowboy (Cowboys & Brides) Page 15
