Southern Charms

by Trana Mae Simmons

  She faced Shane, warmed by his tawny eyes and the glint of humor in them. Somehow she knew he wasn’t laughing at her; his amusement resulted from admiration.

  “I don’t get many chances to remember I’m a woman,” she admitted in a quiet voice. “Not succumbing to foul language is one of the things that reminds me I’m different than my hands, even though their language doesn’t bother me all that much. I’m used to it, I guess.”

  “Oh, you’re definitely a woman, Ellie Parker.” His voice shivered feminine appreciation up her back, cooling her in the humid day. “Don’t ever for one minute doubt that.”

  He looked up at the sky, and Ellie suffered an almost physical wrench when their eyes lost contact. Good thing, though. She had been staring at him like one of those doggies mooning over a prospective new mama.

  “Looks to me like it’s about noon,” he said. “I saw a nice little stream back there with some cottonwood trees for shade. How about we go eat our lunch there?”

  It took a minute for Ellie’s befuddled mind to process what he said, then she straightened in the saddle and briefly glanced at the sun. “Uh...uh, yeah, it’s time to eat. But I forgot to bring anything with me today. I’ll just finish checking this line of fence—”

  “Fatima packed us a lunch, and she’ll have my hide if I let you go without eating, Ellie. She told me so in no uncertain terms. So come on.”

  He turned his stallion, and called, “Hey, Shorty! Ellie and I are going back to that stream and have lunch. What about you men?”

  “We’re gonna ride up to the line shack and fix some stew on the stove,” Shorty called back. “Y’all are welcome to come with us.”

  Shane waved them onward. “We’ll catch you later.”

  Shorty and the other two men rode off. The orders Ellie had issued earlier meant this would be the last she saw of them until supper time. From the line shack, they would travel on to check the newly-fenced-off water hole, then try to find the old pregnant brindle range cow, who somehow avoided roundup each spring. And somehow always avoided getting bred until it meant she would drop her calf far later than the rest of the herd.

  They had spotted the brindle a couple days ago, and she looked like she was ready to calve any minute. She always had wonderful calves, but if they didn’t keep an eye on her, they would never find her and the calf and get the calf branded in case it wandered onto some neighbor’s range.

  The orders she had given them also meant Ellie would be alone with Shane the rest of the day.

  So what? He was only putting up with the heat and dust and long hours in the saddle because he wanted to see if the ranch was worth investing in. If it would make him a few more dollars to add to the mountain of money he already had.

  “I really need to go ahead and finish checking this fence. Cows could wander out if there’s a break somewhere.”

  Shane shrugged and picked up his reins. “Let me know when you’re ready to eat. But I hope we don’t have to ride too far back to the stream by then. Unless you know a nice shady spot on further down the line?”

  Ellie stared longingly over her shoulder. Sweat rivuleted down her back, between her breasts in front, and the tiny stream beckoned. She had eaten numerous lunches along it; well knew how nice and cool it was beneath the cottonwood shade. How the break made the hot, humid afternoon easier to take.

  Right then the cottonwood trees shivered as though a breeze blew through them, and her yearning to feel it decided her.

  “All right,” she said. “I guess it does make sense to eat at the stream, since we’re already so close.”

  Shane smiled, a purely masculine, satisfied smile at getting his way that made her heart triple time. Had he been that lion they saw the other night, he might have licked his lips at the idea and anticipation of getting her alone on the stream bank.

  Well, where the diddly darn had that silly, self-satisfied thought come from? He was only smirking because he would get his own way— get to eat his lunch when he wanted.

  Surely that was it.

  Nudging Cinder with her heels, Ellie headed for the stream at a lope. Following, the stallion’s larger hooves drowned out Cinder’s hoofbeats—or was that her heart thudding louder than Cinder’s hooves?

  Beneath the cottonwoods, Ellie dismounted and removed Cinder’s saddle and bridle. The gelding wouldn’t wander off; it had spent thousands of working days on the range and knew the day wasn’t over yet. Ellie removed her hat and lifted her braid off the back of her neck. The breeze feathered against her skin, making her feel so good she unbuttoned the top two buttons on her blouse. Then she sat down on a fallen limb and reached for her boots.

  “I’m going to wade in the water for a few minutes before we eat,” she answered Shane’s inquiring look as he laid his own saddle aside and carried the sack that had been tied over the back of his horse to a sandy spot on the shore. “If you feel like taking your shirt off and cooling off yourself, please don’t mind me. The hands work shirtless on hot days, and I don’t pay them any never mind.”

  “That won’t be necessary,” Shane said, dropping the bag so hard anything in it would have been broken if it hadn’t landed on sandy soil. His tone of voice told her that she had trod on some feeling he didn’t want her near, but she shrugged it off.

  “In case you haven’t noticed yet,” Ellie said with a chuckle, “this isn’t New York City. We’re not nearly as formal here in Texas. But suit yourself.”

  Leaving him to make his own decision, she tossed her boots aside, stood and stuck a toe in the water. The stream began somewhere underground not far north of here, and the water stayed cool even in the blasting heat of August. Today, in June, it was even cooler, and she relished the chill.

  Ellie’s left foot overturned a sharp rock when she balanced her weight on it, and she flinched at the small stab of pain. Her right foot submerged in the water, sliding on a moss covered stone.

  “Whoa!” she said, then, “brrrr!” But she danced on into the water, out past the rocks lining the shore to the more sandy bottom. Just before the water would have reached the hem of her riding skirt, which fell halfway between her knees and ankles, she stopped and bent down. Cupping both hands into the cool water, she sipped some, then poured the rest over her face, allowing it to run down her neck.

  The water cooled more than her physical body. She felt her pique with both her life and Shane sliding off her shoulders with the icy droplets. Rarely did she get such a refreshing break in the middle of a backbreaking day, and she wanted to savor every blessed minute of it without the restraint of all her mind-weighing problems.

  She would enjoy having some company in her relaxation, too, if only Shane would drop some of his proper formalities. She drenched herself with another brimming, cupped handful of water.

  “Ummmmm,” she said. “I’m glad you talked me into stopping here. You definitely should come on in and cool off, Shane.”

  When he didn’t answer, she glanced at him. He stood as though glued in some of the dangerous red-clay mud on downstream, holding his hat in one hand, his other palm dangling by his side. Gosh darn it, it looked like he was glaring at her. But maybe the shadows from the trees gave his face that glower.

  She cocked her head to find a different point of view of his face, and Shane abruptly turned his back and reached for the sack containing their lunch.

  Well, she liked that. Such a stuffy old Yankee man.

  “Hey, stuffy old Yankee,” she called.

  When Shane turned back toward her, she threw two hands of water straight at him. She had good, strong arms from all the physical labor she did, and the silvery trail of water raced true, with plenty of impetus to splatter his face—a face which took on a stunned disbelief as the water dripped from his chin.

  Uh oh. The disbelief turned to a reckoning glower, and Ellie suddenly remembered how huge he was compared to her tininess. But for some reason, she wasn’t one bit afraid. She clapped her wet hands over her mouth loosely, deliberately
letting her giggles escape.

  He sat down, and she dropped her hands and propped them on her hips.

  He took off his boots, and the taunt she had been going to throw at him died in her throat.

  She kept forgetting that he could move so fast! She barely had time to splash out the other side of the creek before he caught her. He lifted her as easily as he did the large saddle on his stallion and carried her back to the stream. She giggled wildly, flailing in his arms, but knowing she had no chance of escaping a dunking.

  “Don’t,” she pleaded anyway. “Don’t drop me in!”

  He paused, but not before he waded to where the water was a little deeper beneath a huge cottonwood a few yards downstream. He stared down into her face. “Take it back.”

  “What?” she managed around her laughter.

  “About me being a stuffy Yankee.”

  “But sometimes you are—”

  She hit the water without warning, submerging completely, then kicking against the bottom and streaking back up like one of the seals she had read about out on the west coast. Her braid came half undone, and her hair hung sodden and heavy across her eyes. Giggling some more, she pushed it back.

  And stuck out one trim foot between Shane’s spread legs, catching him by surprise when she coiled her toes and jerked back on his knee. He tumbled into the water also.

  She half swam, half lunged to shore again, standing beside the lunch sack and watching as Shane wiped his eyes and pushed his dark blond hair back out of his face. He looked at her, his tawny eyes warm with laughter, shaking his head.

  “I can’t believe a little bit of a thing like you got the better of me,” he said, then threw back his head, his laughter roaring through the treetops.

  Smiling, Ellie sat down on the dead limb and started untangling her hair with her fingers. At last Shane stumbled out of the water, standing on the shore and letting the worst of it drain off him before he approached.

  “I thought you were mad at me because I was interested in buying the ranch,” he said.

  Ellie sighed and continued working to her hair. “I’ve been thinking, and I guess it’s not your fault. I mean, Elvina approached you, not the other way around. I should have expected it after George died.” The sunny day dimmed for her, and Ellie continued, “It’s like almost everything else in my life. I really don’t have a claim to anything. It all belongs to someone else.”

  Shane ambled over and sat down near her on the ground, his face a mixture of seriousness and sadness. “And then some stuffy Yankee comes along and starts thinking of buying something you’ve worked so hard on and that means so much to you.”

  Ellie shrugged, cutting her eyes at him. “You are stuffy sometimes. And I don’t need your pity.”

  “You’re good at making me unstuffy. And it wasn’t pity—it was concern.”

  “Is there such a word as that?” she asked with a chuckle, trying to lighten the mood again. He was getting too close to her hidden feelings now. “I never learned the word ‘unstuffy’ in school.”

  Shane slowly and solemnly shook his head. A wet curl fell over his forehead, drawing her gaze and pointing out the teasing glint in his eyes, which belied the solemnity. He pushed the curl back, and Ellie fought noticing how his wet shirt clung to his wide chest, leaving not one bulge or muscle to her imagination.

  “Why, ma’am,” he said in a laughingly-poor imitation of a Texas drawl. “I guess y’all’s backwoods schools down hyar just don’t keep up on the latest in the English language. Unstuffy, it’s been in use for yars and yars back where I come from.”

  Ellie laughed again, reaching for the lunch sack. Shaking her head and pulling it over between them, she tore open the top. With the tension broken between them, ravenous hunger suddenly filled her.

  She started removing things from the sack, then looked around for somewhere to set them down.

  “Here,” Shane said, holding out his hands.

  She gave him a loaf of bread and the ham, then excitedly opened the sack wider and reached in again. Out came a quarter wheel of a cheese, the smell telling her it was cheddar, her favorite. Next a bag of half a dozen apples, and then a bar of butter wrapped in cheesecloth. She handed all these to Shane, then bent back to the sack.

  There was a small jar of sweet pickles; lucky it hadn’t broken when Shane dropped the sack. Another wedge of cheese—swiss, this time. How had Fatima known she loved this cheese, also, which she had only had once at a nice hotel George had taken her and Darlene to in Dallas?

  Emptying her hands, she reached for a paper bag. When she opened the top, her eyes widened. Chocolate chip and raison cookies. Oh, lordy, she would never get any work done this afternoon.

  “Uh...Ellie.”

  “Shhhh. There’s something else....”

  She found some tin plates and cups, then a tablecloth and napkins. Something was wrapped in the tablecloth, and she shoved the plates, cups and napkins at Shane to unwrap it.

  “Uh...Ellie.”

  The shape inside the tablecloth was round, like a canteen. It was a canteen, and it felt cool beneath the cloth covering. She unscrewed the top and smelled lemonade. Cold, tart lemonade. Perfect on a hot day. Fatima must have used her magic to keep it cold somehow.

  “Oh, it’s—”

  She turned a delighted face on Shane just as the mound in his arms started trembling, ready to fall. Hastily propping the open canteen against a rock so it wouldn’t tip over, she grabbed the sack of cookies and the ham, giggling as she tucked them in one arm and spread the tablecloth in a lumpy mess with the other hand.

  “There,” she told Shane. “Set everything else down now.”

  “Ellie, if I try to set everything else down, everything’s still going to land in a heap.”

  Smiling at him, she raised onto her knees and started taking things from his arms, placing them on the tablecloth. The last thing she tried to take was the cotton napkins, but he held them tightly in his fingers. She tugged, then looked up at him in question.

  His intent gaze was on her face; his head bent and his lips only about the width of an easy movement away. His gaze entrapped her like a jackrabbit she had seen one night when she caught it in the beam of her lantern light. Her nipples puckered against her wet shirt in reaction.

  She studied that purely masculine, so close, so very attractive face, like she had wanted to do in real life but only done in her dreams at night.

  His hair slicked back, outlining a broad forehead, with a crease of concentration in it at the moment. Her fingers itched to smooth it away, but she resisted. His eyebrows matched his hair, resting above his gold-dust sprinkled eyes. His eyes were the most expressive eyes she had ever seen—ever reacted to. She truly loved his eyes. The light colored lashes didn’t look that long—until you got this close to them. They curled slightly on the tips—dark at the roots and golden at the curls.

  A straight nose bisected his face between nice cheekbones, and his mouth—oh, that mouth. Full and firm and perfectly masculine. She sighed, the movement rasping her breast tips against her shirt and pebbling them into further hardness. The woman who married Shane Morgan and got the right to kiss him would truly enjoy his mouth.

  She had been kissed a couple times, once rather pleasantly, but once in a wet, sucking motion that made her think her beau was trying to swallow her. That was the same beau who tossed his stomach on her skirts.

  “If you don’t quit looking at me like that—” Shane said in a gravelly voice.

  “Like what?” she mused.

  “Like a cat getting ready to lap up a bowl of fresh cream,” he growled.

  Her eyes flew back to his. “Oh! Oh, I’m sorry. I—”

  He kissed her. Without any warning, she found his lips on hers, and it was every bit as wonderful as she had imagined—had dreamed about. Their mouths fit exactly right on each others, and his lips were warm and gentle, firm yet caressing. The only other place he touched her was on her fingers, still clutching the napkin
s along with him. He feathered a light touch back and forth across the tops of them.

  Sensation raced up her arm, joining the thrills cascading over her from his lips.

  He drew back a bare inch, and said, “I’ve been wanting to do that for a very, very long time.”

  She sighed. He caught the sigh in his mouth when he bent to kiss her again. This time he gently ran the very tip of his tongue across her upper lip, and she somehow instinctively knew what to do. She opened her mouth. With a groan, he deepened the kiss, took it to another degree and slipped his arms around her.

  Slipped backward, pulling her with him. When she stiffened

  —in surprise, not resistance—he cupped her head and slid his lips down her throat, then traced his tongue back up the side of it to her ear. She heard a muffled whimper of longing, and realized it was hers.

  “Ellie. Oh, God, Ellie,” he said with a groan she felt in her breast tips pressed against his chest.

  He pulled her lips back to his, and the world receded. Hungry, hot and claiming, he kissed her as though branding her. After only a second’s shock—not at the kiss but at the pleasure racing through her—Ellie greedily joined the dance of his tongue in her mouth.

  At her first touch, Shane growled his declaration of satisfaction—and deep enjoyment. Not needing to hold her, since there was no way their mouths would give up their greedy joining, he ran his hands down her back and to her hips.

  Something long and hard—and feeling good—sprang up between them. Ellie’s foggy mind told her it had been there for several seconds, but when Shane snugged her hips against it, the pleasure raced up her stomach and joined the swelling longing in her breasts with a force that almost rang in the air.

  She didn’t think she voiced the longing for him to see what he could do about her breasts, but maybe he read her mind. The next thing she knew, all her sensations pooled in her left breast, which had somehow escaped her blouse and found its way inside a warm, tugging mouth. But the clamor of a new, untried sensation beginning to swell farther down, right below her belly, overpowered the scandalously decadent uproar in her breast.