Pumpkins, Cowboys & Guitars

by Patti Ann Colt

  Sully snorted from across the table. “Yeah, we know.”

  Nick threw a couple bills across the table to Sully to cover their tab and hefted Peyton over his shoulder. “See y’all next week.”

  The poker game lasted two more hands before Shane looked at his watch. “I’ve got a woman waiting on me, boys. I’m out.”

  Giff grimaced. “You’re just scared. You’ve lost every hand.”

  “I’ve lost all my cash, but not my senses. Woman? Or you guys?” Shane snorted. “Woman.”

  “You should bring her to meet us.” Sully shoved his cards to the pile in the center of the table.

  Shane handed some money to Sully. “Uh, no.”

  Sully grinned. “Well at least bring her to family dinner on Sunday. Family needs to get a look at her, see if she’ll do.”

  Jess couldn’t help it. He laughed outright at the idea. “Yeah, brother, Mom would love to meet her.”

  Shane glared at the two. “That would be no. Kendra isn’t ready for the family yet. Neither am I.”

  He left amid a bunch of ribbing and Jess realized he’d better get it in gear and go home before Sully and Giff got on him again about Amy Rose.

  The guys didn’t understand. Amy Rose was going to have to stand up for what she wanted. Maybe he didn’t understand how hard that was for her because he’d been born into his career, loved it and had a family that backed him up. Maybe he should just cut her some slack. But something chaffed inside at their life together not being the thing she picked. Definitely, this was the kind of thing real men didn’t talk about over the poker table.

  He stood up and forked over his portion of the tab for the evening. “I’m heading home. Early morning.”

  Gifford stood. “Me, too. Night, Sully.”

  Sully looked around the restaurant. The place was pretty full, even though they were an hour from closing. “Guess I’ll stay and balance the books after the door closes.”

  “Maybe you need to find a woman, too.” Giff laughed at his jab and walked away, waving goodnight.

  “Over my dead body.”

  Jess heard him whisper and chose to stay silent. “Night, Sully. See you Sunday.”

  “Lord willing and the creek don’t rise.” Sully rose and stacked the cards.

  Jess snorted under his breath. “Right now I’d take the creek rising. Too hot and too dry. One stray cigarette and the whole place will go up like paper in a furnace.”

  “You’re keeping track of Amy’s place as well as yours, aren’t you?”

  “Yes.” He tipped his hat and walked away.

  “If that ain’t love, I don’t know what is.” Sully yelled after him.

  Jess kept walking, sorry he was losing the distraction of the game, but relieved to be able to let his defenses down.

  He stepped outside onto the restaurant’s porch and glanced at the thermometer hanging there. Ninety-five degree heat. Eleven o’clock at night and still this hot? Wasn’t going to cool off and that was bad news.

  He ambled to his truck and looked up at the stars. “Don’t know why I bother sleeping. Might as well check Amy’s place tonight.”

  He left the parking lot and turned onto Copper Canyon Road. He didn’t hurry. He let his mind wander to other nights he’d driven this route to Amy Rose’s house. Allowed the memory of those nights she’d met him out on the porch and they’d made love under the stars. If he closed his eyes, he could feel those memories, fresh and vital.

  Those thoughts collided with their fight. He worked the ranch because he’d never had interest in anything else and turned out he was good at it. Amy Rose was smart and had the ability on several fronts to make something of herself. This whole mess wasn’t about how much they loved each other, because God knew from the first moment their feelings had been bigger than the Texas sky. It was about those intangibles that made the future. Sometimes a certain path needed to be taken to fulfill a destiny and he was scared to death Amy Rose’s path would take her away from him. And yet if he didn’t respect her right to choose, that made him worse than her parents.

  Depression swept over him and he wished he’d stayed at Sully’s and gotten as drunk as Peyton. He wouldn’t be driving down this country road, ready to check a ranch that wasn’t even his just because he loved the damn woman. At the Orchard Hill intersection, he made a right and drove another half-mile where he met Amy’s driveway. He turned into the long lane and stopped.

  Amy’s Rose’s car was parked next to the back porch.

  There was a light on in the kitchen.

  ∞∞∞∞

  Amy Rose sat in the dark in the living room, not wanting to go to bed. She couldn’t settle. Her cotton nightgown was rubbing against breasts and belly sensitive from early pregnancy and stirred by memories of Jess’s touch. It was too hot to think of other clothes, though. It was too quiet and with only her circling thoughts for company, she was a wreck.

  She didn’t want the television on.

  She didn’t want to read.

  She refused to visit the bathroom again.

  Her cellphone was dead.

  She’d already booted up her computer and messaged Jess, but he hadn’t answered.

  She’d researched morning sickness and some of the remedies.

  She could cruise a few websites and start looking for baby clothes and furniture, but that made her more frustrated and upset.

  Lights flashed on the windows and she got up to see who was coming to the house at this time of night.

  The truck pulled down the lane and when it came under the yard light, she sucked in a breath.

  Jess.

  She shoved her feet into her flip flops, rushed to the back door and out to the driveway, not taking time for a robe.

  Jess got out of his truck, his mouth opened in surprise.

  Their argument washed over her. She wanted to yell and scream at him, she wanted to hit him, she wanted….ohhhh.

  She launched herself at him and took his lips. She didn’t know how it was possible to be so damn mad, yet want him so bad.

  He did what he always did — softened his lips, smoothed a hand down her spine, calming her, gentling her, seducing her. Then he pressed into her with hungry tastes, pulled her against his solid length and tightened his hold.

  God, she was home.

  Breath mingled, sensation after sensation blasted through her. She stroked his back, the warmth of his body defying the shirt and spreading tingles into her hands. “Why didn’t you call me?”

  “I did. Why did you leave in the first place?” He lifted her nightgown and stroked the bare skin underneath.

  She bit her lip, sighing, wanting, wavering. She slipped her nose against his skin and absorbed the familiar spike of need. She didn’t have a prayer of stopping herself. She jumped up into his arms, wrapping her legs around his waist, kissing away his surprise.

  “I missed you, baby.” He eased his mouth to her jaw to her ear to her neck.

  Hot, blistering need rushed over her. She didn’t give a damn that they should talk first. This had always been their way to heal from an argument.

  He carried her along the gravel driveway to the back of the house, to the porch swing where the view of the pasture and the stand of withered elm trees at the back of the house protected them from view. They used to keep a blanket on the swing just for moments like this, but she’d been gone, so the planks would be bare. They should go inside to the bed. She started to murmur just that, when he sank into the swing. Her knees hit fabric.

  What?

  She twisted to look.

  “Shhhh, come here, crazy girl.” His lips found the spot beneath her ears and sucked, making her womb clench, her nipples pebble. Her body sighed in sinful release.

  She returned the favor, sucking his earlobe, nimble fingers finding the buttons on his shirt. “Where did the blanket come from?”

  “No blanket, a cushion. Had it made.” He lifted her nightgown over her head. His lips sealed over her breast and sucke
d like the finest passion fruit. The warm night air caressed her body in counterpoint to the warmth of his mouth. The question of why and when he’d ordered the cushion disappeared.

  He abandoned her breasts for her mouth again and took to helping her divest him of his clothes. She was loathe to release him, but shifted off his lap to let him stand. She relished her nakedness in the moonlight and questioned her sanity.

  The unusually hot air of the late evening wrapped around her like a mood, not a breeze stirring. The crickets chirped while Jess shucked his boots and his jeans. Just as sanity was beginning to win its way back into her consciousness, his hands were on her hips pulling her back to the swing, to his lap and hungry mouth.

  “Missed so many nights of this.” His hands urged her forward against the bareness of his skin and the steel of his erection. He caressed his way across her hip and over her stomach and she froze.

  Would he feel the baby? Rationally, she knew she didn’t show enough yet for him to realize, but when he hesitated and pressed a hand to her stomach she wondered. But then he slid his fingers through the wetness at her core at the same time pulled a neglected nipple into her mouth.

  Baby forgotten, she relaxed into the rhythm of their lovemaking. Her breath grew more ragged as he did the things she liked, touching and stroking.

  She pushed her fingers through his hair and forced his mouth back to hers. She might have whispered “hungry for kisses,” but she wasn’t sure and it didn’t matter when he groaned deep and settled into her, his mouth and his body claiming her.

  He knew how to hold her, how to use his hands and mouth to worship her, how to push her to the edge, pull back, then push some more until she was burning, begging, bordering on consumed.

  She gave as good as she got, reveling in his strength, his smell, his surrender to her demand for faster rhythm, harder and tighter, moving and breathing as one —until the edge beckoned and she fell with a throaty scream, taking him with her.

  Jess held her close, kissing her and stroking her skin. She sagged into him, laying her head against his heart and staring out at the star-filled night.

  Finally, Jess rose and picked up their clothes and handed them to her. He swept her up and carried her into the house. In her bedroom, she dropped their clothes on the rocking chair. Jess followed her down onto the bed.

  “Glad you finally came to your senses.” He spread kisses down her neck and across her collarbone.

  She struggled against the need churning in her belly. “I came to my senses?”

  He rose up on one arm. “You came home, didn’t you?”

  She rolled away from him. “Obviously, my time away didn’t settle this one bit.” She rose and shrugged into a T-shirt.

  Jess shifted to sit on the edge of the bed, his nakedness a major distraction, damn him.

  “What did you expect, Amy? You can’t walk away from the argument and expect it to solve itself.”

  “I didn’t expect it to solve itself. I expected us both to get some perspective. There’s no right answer.”

  “So nothing’s changed. You’re still going to take the bar exam?”

  All her confusion churned inside. “Jess, I’ve spent three years in law school. Why wouldn’t I at least take the exam?”

  He rolled off the bed and put on his jeans. “We both know what your father wants after that.”

  “And you know that’s not what I want.”

  He fastened his belt. “Then why is it so hard for you to tell him so?”

  She put a knee on the bed and leaned toward him. “You know, Jess, not everyone has great parents like yours.”

  He sat in the side chair and pulled on his socks. “That’s an excuse, Amy.”

  She rounded the bed. “No, it’s truth. You wouldn’t be so fast to tell me to ditch all this if you had to sacrifice your family to do it.” She pushed her hands through her hair.

  His feet hit the floor, his hands braced on his knees. “What about us?”

  Exasperation seized her temper. “What about us? This doesn’t change us!” At least she hoped it didn’t. She’d never planned on being a single parent.

  He slipped on his boots. “It already has.”

  “How?”

  “I thought we were solid. I thought you would never go away, run away. Before.”

  She sagged, hard pressed to explain without telling him the whole truth. He had to respect her, respect her choices or where were they as lovers, as a couple, as parents?

  “I’m trying to find a way to keep my relationship with my parents intact. Could you please try to understand that?”

  He picked up his hat from the chest at the end of the bed. “And if that’s not possible?”

  She sat on the edge of the bed and stared out the window into the dark night. “I don’t know, Jess. They are still my family.”

  “Guess that’s my answer then.”

  She didn’t like the way that sounded. “This isn’t an either/or situation, Jess!”

  “Isn’t it, Amy? At some point, you are going to have to choose. I didn’t make it that way. They did. You say you don’t want to practice law with your father, but I don’t see you doing anything to make him understand that. How long do you want me to wait?”

  The hurt speared through her, sucking her breath and her temper. “Well, I sorta thought I could count on you through thick and thin.” She turned to face him square on. “Apparently, I thought wrong.”

  “I’m still here, aren’t I? You’re the one who ran.”

  Tears sprang to her eyes. She would not tell him about the baby to justify her behavior. She just would not. “I had some things to think through.”

  “What things?”

  “You were born to the life you wanted, Jess. And your parents are proud of you. I wasn’t. I have to work my way through this in my own way.”

  He settled his hat on his head. “Fine. You do that. You let me know when you decide where we stand.”

  This time, he was the one to walk away.

  ∞∞∞∞∞∞

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Amy Rose cried herself to sleep. Exhaustion didn’t help her emotional state. Seemed like her energy was being sucked down into a vortex called baby and she slept like days had passed since her last nap, not hours.

  She slept too long and too hard, barely moved during the night and woke up with an empty stomach, an achy body and heart and an overwhelming nausea. She rolled out of bed slowly, went looking for crackers and found none. There wasn’t much in the way of groceries in the house, something she’d have to rectify today.

  She settled for the last can of Sprite from the fridge, a hot shower and her most comfortable denim shorts and red striped top. Her favorite radio station was reporting record one hundred fifteen degree heat today, so she sprayed her bare skin with sunscreen.

  She picked up her sunglasses and went out on the back porch. The cushion on the back porch swing was a delicate red flowered print. And the wicker chairs had matching pillows. She sniffed back tears, rolling in tender love laced with frustration from last night. She started to the barn to check on the horses, but stopped at the edge of the porch and stared at the support beams.

  They’d been painted. She looked down and realized the planks of the porch had been painted, too. Had her father paid the hired hand to do so?

  Bemused, she looked around in the light of day. The flower beds were weeded, the bushes trimmed along the driveway, the roses had bursts of blooms. A soaker hose was stretched along the right flower bed and the lawn had been mowed. The lawn she could understand. A service came and did that, but the rest had been up to her since she’d moved to the house.

  Going to the barn, she opened the door and stepped into a clean, organized barn that obviously wasn’t hers. The hired hand did a good job with the horses, but he wasn’t the most tidy and certainly wouldn’t have done the extra unless he was paid for it. And yet, the house had been cared for. The horses had been turned out into the pasture, the floor w
as swept, the saddles were all in their place along the wall. She took a step over and checked the stalls. They’d been cleaned.

  “I’ve stepped into barn wonderland.” If she didn’t know her father was paying a hired hand, she’d swear Jess had been here. This looked a lot like his barn procedures.

  She stepped back outside and gazed across the pasture. Both her horses were over by the trees, trying to stay cool, and looked none the worse for her impromptu mini-vacation. She pulled her shirt away from her skin, already wilting in the heat and ready to get back inside.

  But until she got some groceries, found something for breakfast that would settle her stomach, replaced her cell phone and talked to Jess, she couldn’t. She went back inside for her purse, keys and a hat for her head.

  She got her in car and tried to convince herself to do her errands before she went to Jess, but impulse wasn’t listening to logic. She needed to see him, be near him for a minute, and just make sure that his walking away last night wasn’t walking away for good.

  ∞∞∞∞

  Jess watched Amy Rose’s car come down the driveway and sighed deep inside. Something wound tighter than a broken music box let go.

  She’d come.

  Two seconds after he’d pulled out of the driveway, he’d realized what a stupid damn ass idiot he was. He’d just done the same thing to her that she’d done to him. The discussion was pushing both their hot buttons and neither was able to say what they really wanted to say.

  I love you and want you forever. Choose me.

  She parked by his truck and he went to meet her, determined to kiss her good morning and say he was sorry.

  She got out of the car, pale and looking exhausted, and swayed. He was close enough to her that three steps pulled her to him.

  “Are you all right?”

  She put a hand to her head. “I didn’t sleep very well and I haven’t eaten. It’s so hot.”

  He tipped her face up to his. “My fault you didn’t sleep well. I’m sorry. I’m frustrated and taking it out on you isn’t the thing to do.”

  She put her hand over his. “Jess, I have something…”