Bootscootin' Blahniks

by D. D. Scott

  “Back again, boys. I see our staff has treated you to another round. Drink up,” she commanded with all the sweet sugar she dared. “Cheers.”

  Hearing their cue, The Moms descended on Harry Baudlin while Jules and Audrey went to play with the four farmhands.

  This could be fun, Roxy thought, hating to take her attention away from the show but needing to work her own crowd.

  Their assignment had been to make nice with the boys, getting as much dirt on the Baudlin Farms’ operation as they could. Shouldn’t be a problem. Roxy had ‘em all liquored up and their eyes filled. All that was left to do was to get their mouths running.

  Roxy had the easiest job on the diva squad. She loved gay men. And gay men loved fashion. Besides, Roxy hadn’t had a chance to properly thank Jack for sending Deena Mettles and her stylist to Raeve. She would take this very special opportunity to do that.

  Working her charges, gabbing non-stop about her ideas for Raeve’s fall collection, Roxy hooked her idiots. Once she’d mentioned she’d like their input on a men’s line, Jack and Santos were hers until she cast them back into the sea.

  Taking a moment to glance at The Moms, Roxy could hardly stifle a wicked grin. Harry was had. Poor man had been Mommified. Kat and Lily had their hands all over him, with other body parts dangling dangerously close to invading his personal space.

  Roxy knew Kat could handle the heat, but she was amazed watching her mother play her own cards. Lil was lethal. When Harry pulled out his wallet and started removing dollar bills, Roxy got worried.

  Her mom sure as hell didn’t. She shimmied her body even closer to Harry then whispered in his ear. Whatever she’d said made his wallet fall to the floor and his face turn a deep, dark red.

  Without missing a beat, Kat’s head disappeared under the table, hopefully just to retrieve Harry’s wallet and the contents that had spilled onto the floor.

  Concerned because Kat had been under the table for awhile, Roxy couldn’t take her eyes away from the action, even though Jack and Santos were getting way too involved in Raeve’s men’s line.

  Harry hollered then damn near jumped off his seat.

  Roxy gasped.

  The rest of the table cheered.

  Surely not. Now that’s just bad.

  When Kat returned to a more respectable position above table-level, she winked at Roxy then smoothed her hair and straightened the collar on her shirt.

  Time to call-off the cavalry and regroup in the kitchen, Roxy thought. Kat must have gotten a good grasp on why her farm’s competitors were celebrating.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Roxy and her sisters of seduction fixated on the index card pinned to the kitchen’s butcher block table via a grotesquely large knife. There it was…The Red Rocket Brandywine seed mix card number four of five.

  “I know what I’d like to do with that knife,” Kat said, pounding her fist against the table.

  “Easy, Kat,” Lily said, laying her hand on her co-conspirator. “You shouldn’t get this riled-up.”

  “Oh hog shit. The damn bastard took that card last spring when Zayne dropped his daddy’s file box. I have every right to be a raging lunatic.” Kat fanned herself with a soiled dishrag. “I should have kicked Harry’s balls instead of just pinching them. But at least we got the damn card back.”

  “Let’s hope it’s not too late.” Roxy said, just as the lights in the building went black.

  “What the —,” Kat started, cut-off by a horrific clash in the heavens. “That sounds like one hellacious storm.”

  She crossed to a nearby baker’s rack and grabbed a flashlight from the top shelf then turned on the radio one shelf down. Turning up the volume, she brought the radio to the butcher table, setting it in the middle of the chop block next to the impaled card.

  Following the National Weather Service’s Emergency Alert siren, the robotic announcement indicated they were under a severe storm warning and tornado watch.

  Roxy’s heart palpitated beneath her shirt. Her hands grew damp. Zayne was working the fields late tonight. With the tractor running, he’d never hear the warnings.

  She looked at Kat, who, judging by her panic-stricken look, must have read her mind.

  “You keep things under control for our customers. I’ll go after Zayne.” Roxy reached under the table, grabbing her purse out of the cabinet.

  “Here take my truck.” Kat yanked the keys to her Hummer off a rack on the wall and tossed them to Roxy. “It’ll handle better in this weather than Zayne’s tomato truck. But hold the wheel tight. In strong winds, it’s a rough ride.”

  “I’ll go with you.” Roxy’s mom said, searching the dark kitchen for her purse, unable to find it. “Oh, screw it. Let’s go. We don’t have time to waste.”

  “I appreciate your offer, Mom, but stay here and help Kat. There’s more you can do here helping her calm the customers. I’ll be fine.” Not thinking first, simply going with her gut instincts, Roxy pulled her mother close and hugged her. “But thank you for being here for me. I’ll never forget it.”

  Seeming too overcome by emotion to respond with words, her mother nodded.

  After hugging Kat, Jules and Audrey, Roxy pulled the knife out of the mix card and dropped the card into her purse. Slipping out The Neon Cowboy’s back door, she damn near lost her hold on the handle as the wind challenged her grip.

  Secured in Kat’s truck, Roxy shoved the Hummer’s gearshift into drive and fumbled for the headlight switch. Even though it was probably too late for Zayne’s tomatoes, at least he’d have the card back and be on the look out for the foul weather approaching.

  He’d been so hard on himself because he couldn’t get the mix right. Roxy couldn’t stand to watch him lose the contest without proof of the Baudlins’ underhanded actions. Even if he hadn’t asked for her help, she’d have hunted down the truth on her own, unable to rest until she’d nailed the sons of bitches.

  As she hit the highway, the wind howled, making it difficult to keep the Hummer on the road.

  She felt safer, though, in Kat’s big tank than in her sporty sedan or Zayne’s beat-up pick-up, although the humungous size of vehicle probably led to a false sense of security. Still, she liked it. Her boots looked much better against monster truck floorboards than against her sedan’s plush, lamb’s wool mats. Maybe she would sell the Mercedes. She just didn’t really care to drive it anymore.

  Like the storm raging across the Tennessee countryside, Roxy had navigated the storms in her life, never afraid to face threatening clouds alone. But not until Zayne and Kat had become a part of her life did she realize the comfort in battling conflicts with a small army of love backing her every move.

  Rain pelted the windshield, forcing Roxy to turn up the wipers’ speed. She cranked up the defrost and leaned-up in her seat, trying to get a better view of the road ahead. Lightning cracked the sky, splintering the night into an electrical symphony.

  With the heavy rains came pea-size pellets of hail. Each pellet ricocheted off the Hummer leaving chinks in Roxy’s nerves. Not a big fan of storms, she’d rather be hiding under a big ‘ole blanket until it passed.

  And she’d certainly never driven in a meteorological event of this magnitude. Hell, she didn’t own a car until she’d left Manhattan. She’d never needed one. For as long as she could remember, she’d had an assigned driver from the car service her father employed. Probably not a bad idea in this kind of weather, but Roxy was no longer into smooth sailing. In fact, she almost had the hang of living on the edge.

  As she neared the exit taking her through the county to the McDonald Farm, the hail stopped. But the rain hurtled through the night in torrential downpours. The Hummer’s wiper speed was maxed. Any harder and Roxy would be forced to pull over.

  C’mon baby. She coached the SUV, patting the dashboard for good measure. Just take us six more miles. We’ve got to get to Zayne.

  The thought of him in the middle of a field, unaware of the brutal storms brewing, chilled her
. He was her everything. She refused to consider life without him. If she’d waited out the storm at the saloon and Zayne got hurt, she’d never have forgiven herself.

  She replayed in her mind the National Weather Service’s alert. The announcer said Nashville was under a severe storm warning and a tornado watch. That meant severe storms were imminent. A loud boom again rocked the earth — yeah, she got that. The thunder vibrated through the SUV and into her core.

  Now, as far as the tornado watch, that meant conditions were favorable for a tornado, right? Not that one had actually been spotted. Damn. She hoped she was right. Otherwise, she was headed straight into the center of the storm.

  A fork of lightning ripped through the sky. Sparks shot up from the ground then erupted into a huge fireball. Evidently something of relevance had been struck.

  Roxy had no problem buying into either forecast. With the increased frequency and wickedness of the lightning, her adrenaline surged. She pressed the gas pedal toward the floorboard. Let’s give this tank a good run.

  Swinging into the farm’s lane, gravel kicking-up behind the rear tires, Roxy booked it, yanking the steering wheel sharply to the right to make the turn toward the barns. Screeching to a jerky halt in front of the open doors of the first barn, she killed the engine and climbed out of the SUV.

  The wind, once whirling in a horrific roar while it beat the earth, had left an eerie silence in its wake. Goose bumps rushed over Roxy’s arms. The tops of the trees were stilled. Not a single branch stirred. Shit. This didn’t look good.

  Trying to shake off the fear consuming her, she rubbed her arms. Grinding the heel of her boot into the dust, she thanked the angry heavens she wasn’t wearing stilettos.

  She walked to the edge of the field closest to the first barn, looking out into the vast, deeply shadowed earth. She searched for Zayne’s tractor lights. Not seeing any, she ran past the next barn then stopped at the edge of a second field. She strained her eyes, willing his tractor to appear.

  Repeating her actions two additional times and with only three fields left, she hustled past a fourth barn.

  Without warning and without changing altitude, Roxy’s ears popped. She tugged on her earlobes then moved her jaw back and forth, trying to alleviate the uncomfortable sensation.

  Finally spotting Zayne’s tractor coming towards the barn, she took-off through the tomato vines, sprinting toward the John Deere, wishing with everything she had she’d get to Zayne in time.

  Damn. Zayne didn’t like the feel of the air closing in on the fields. His ears had popped, adjusting for a drastic drop in pressure. They were in for one hell of a storm.

  He’d decided to head for the barn to grab his NOAA weather alert radio. He’d meant to put it in his pocket after he’d swallowed the dinner his mom left him in the main barn’s office. But he’d been in such a rush to get back in the fields, he’d forgotten.

  His tractor rolled over the well-worn dirt rows separating the mounds of tomato vines, then crested a hill before heading down into another low spot. He swore he saw the headlamps pick up a moving shadow. But who’d be dumb enough to wander out here when it was obvious they were about to get hammered by a big storm?

  Zayne focused on where he’d last seen the moving object, waiting until the tractor conquered the next hill to zero-in on the exact location.

  What the hell? When he saw Roxy running toward him, his heart nearly stopped. He felt completely helpless. The tractor was moving at full speed, and it still felt like he was barely making headway to close the gap between them.

  Nature’s eerie calm gave way to a cold wind that whistled and howled with increasing intensity the closer he got to Roxy. It wasn’t long before huge drops of rain pummeled his shoulders and back. The drops quickly became streams which almost instantaneously turned into torrential sheets, pricking his skin as if they were needles.

  He hollered Roxy’s name but knew she’d never hear him above the ferocious storm.

  His gut twisted into a fierce protective knot. He didn’t have time to wait on this ancient tractor. Slamming the gearshift into neutral, he turned off the motor and jumped to the ground.

  He thought he heard her screaming out his name, but figured it was the storm messing with his mind. Hail the size of golf balls fell from the sky, leaving bruises on his flesh with each hit.

  Frustrated with her for risking her safety for God knew what, he sprinted for Roxy beneath the thunderous roars echoing across the fields, dodging the deadly forks of lightning spearing the earth.

  The rain, once plummeting to the ground, began to move backwards, up towards the sky, the effect of a major, vacuum-like force. Not until that moment did Zayne realize just how much trouble they were in. Fuck. A twister had to be coming right at them.

  Reaching Roxy at last, he pulled her close to him, not sure if he wanted to kiss her or throttle her. What the hell was she doing out here? Whatever the reason, he didn’t have time to find out.

  Zayne grabbed her by the hand, screaming over the wind for her to follow him. Telling her whatever she did, not to let go of his hand. She nodded her head she understood, her eyes telling him everything he needed to know.

  If they were lucky enough to survive this twister, their life would never be the same.

  Stashed in the barn minutes later, hay bales piled around them as additional safety nets, Roxy shivered, burying her head into Zayne’s drenched shirt. What had possessed her to run into the field was still a mystery. But now that she’d found her man, risks weren’t worth worrying about. Zayne was.

  After holding her tight against him, Zayne pushed Roxy away from his chest, a mixture of fear and anger sparking from his eyes.

  “What the hell were you thinking? You could have been picked-up by that twister. Hell, we’re still not out of the woods.”

  “Well I wasn’t blown away and neither were you so that’s all that matters,” she answered, learning quickly that her unnecessary bravado hadn’t gone over well.

  “Don’t move while I go get the weather radio. Do you think you can do that?”

  “Perhaps,” she said, a bit hurt by his abrasiveness.

  Rain dripped from his hair, sliding over his overly taught jaw line. If she wasn’t scared half to death, and he wasn’t pissed, being holed up together in the barn could prove to be fun.

  The longer she sat, nestled on the barn’s cement floor between the tall stacks of hay, the more Roxy recognized how foolish she’d been. She could have gotten herself killed. Then where would she be? That thought sent heat back into her bones, hopefully not a premonition of Hell being the warm spot that would eventually heat her stone cold determination to go after what she wanted.

  That thought wasn’t even funny except, at this point, she’d rather laugh at the ludicrous instead of cry with reality.

  Soon Zayne was back, settling-in next to her with two radios squawking.

  Thanks to the volume blasting from the speakers to override the static-filled airwaves, the dull points of an encroaching headache took over Roxy’s temples. The adrenaline rushes of the evening were still wreaking havoc in her body, screwing her system royally. Every bone she had was starting to ache, as if she were going on eighty instead of thirty-five.

  Zayne, apparently feeling her pain or taking pity on her pouting lips, or both, took her back into his arms.

  “I’m sorry for being harsh. You just scared me beyond human limits. I don’t know what I’d do without you. I love you so damn much. And that, Princess, scares me more.”

  Hearing him say the words she once thought she didn’t want to hear and now couldn’t possibly ever tire of hearing re-energized Roxy’s body, mind and soul. “I love you too, Zayne. And you know that’s not easy for me either.”

  “Nothing with you is ever easy,” Zayne responded, planting soft, incessant kisses down the length of her neck. “You’re a pistol, all right.”

  Zayne rolled her onto her side then whispered into her ears perhaps the naughtiest suggesti
on she’d ever heard.

  But she liked what he had in mind. She liked it a lot.

  With the storm still raging outside the barn, they were about to stir one up in the hay to match if not exceed Mother Nature’s intensity. Like most of the best of Roxy’s dreams, reality with Zayne in the picture was consistently better.

  She pulled-off her soaked t-shirt and covered the nearest bale of hay. As Zayne had propositioned, she then positioned herself on her knees, bending against and slightly over the bale.

  He slid in behind her, running his hands over every muscle she had from the base of her neck to the small of her back, tracing each outline of her contoured body mass with his fingertips.

  Chills caused by a mixture of his touch and the air rushing over her damp skin descended Roxy’s body from her head to the tips of her boots. As his strong, wet hands settled along each of her hip bones, Zayne lowered his pants and slid into position behind her.

  “I believe we left the farm with some unfinished business the night of our river boat cruise,” he stated in a husky and hungry drawl.

  His gravel-edged voice pierced the relative silence in the barn. Except for the howling winds and the snowy static of the radios still not able to catch a station, it was just him and his perfect body, her in nothing but her boots, and a bale of hay Roxy hoped could stand the heat of their unleashed desires.

  Zayne entered her from behind then began pumping her soft and steady, moving in and out of her with a sensual cadence. His smooth rhythm building to what became erotic thrusts keeping time to a much edgier beat.

  Roxy rode with him, bucking him hard but never throwing him off his mount. She couldn’t get enough of him.

  As her body heated, moisture from more than the torrential rain covered her skin. She took pleasure again and again from feeling him penetrate deeper and deeper inside her. Reaching for the opposite side of the bale, she held on tight ’til all control left her wanton and reckless.