Love Letters Volume 6: Cowboy's Command (The Love Letters)

by Ginny Glass

  In fact, she didn’t delete the number. She stared at it all Thursday evening. On Friday, she ignored Carrie’s questions and Ruth’s waggling eyebrows. She made it until Saturday afternoon before hitting Call. She was halfway between the café and her apartment, so she ducked into an alley to hear the phone ring.

  It went to voicemail. “Hi. You know what to do.” Pause, then a beep.

  Her mouth was open before her brain could get her to hang up. “Oh, hi. I’m the waitress at the Short Stack. Diana. My name’s Diana.” She rattled off her number and hung up before she could say anything even stupider.

  Then the real insanity started. She didn’t want to fall for a cowboy. She wanted to get her gasket, fix the Fairlane and get out of Dodge. So why was she hovering by the phone like a teenager stewed in hormones?

  Because he might call her back. Which was proof positive she’d lost her marbles.

  She ate some leftovers, because what if the phone rang while she was draining pasta or something? After dinner, she flipped through an old issue of People, scared that the sound of the TV would drown out the phone.

  She brushed her teeth slowly and quietly. It was official—they could declare her nuts and cart her away. She rinsed her mouth out just as the phone rang.

  “Hello?”

  “Diana?”

  She closed her eyes. It was Table Six. “Hi.” Her voice sounded breathy and eager. She could smell the minty-freshness.

  “Hi.”

  She’d started this lunacy, so it was up to her to talk. “You should probably tell me your name. I’ve been thinking of you as Table Six.”

  “Ben Hastings. And yours is Diana, right?” His chuckle sent shivers down her spine.

  “Right. Diana Pendleton.”

  “Very pleased to meet you, Diana Pendleton.”

  Get a grip. Don’t pretend this is anything real. “Look, Ben, I need to be honest here. I’m only passing through Laramie.”

  “Are you a student at the university?”

  Diana shuddered. That was the last thing she wanted to do here. “No, I was driving to Oregon when my car broke down. I’m still waiting on that part for the Fairlane.”

  “Wow. You’ve been here weeks. Does the part need to be gold-plated?” Ben’s voice had the same effect on her that his smile did. Her core temp just spiked from “I must be crazy” to “Take me now.”

  “No. It’s a special gasket to fix my intake manifold. I restored the car myself, so I’m not exactly working with original equipment.”

  “Oh.” His voice registered respect. And something else. “Remind me what sort of car it is?”

  “Nineteen-sixty Ford Fairlane.”

  “Cool. If you want, I have access to a place you could work on it.”

  “You do?”

  “Yeah. I’m trying to buy a ranch that’s in foreclosure, so I have the keys.”

  “Oh, that’s why you’re free to come into the diner for lunch twice a week.”

  He chuckled. “Killing two birds. I stop by the bank to see if they’re ready to take my money, then I stop by the Short Stack to see you. I don’t seem to be making much progress in either place.”

  She pressed a hand against her midriff, as if she could stop hope from leaping up in her throat. Could he mean—In the very next thought, she tried to push that hope away. She didn’t need to have another failed relationship to show her that she couldn’t fix everything.

  Another pause. Then he said, “So do you get a day off?”

  “Sundays. The café is closed.” The answer was out of her mouth before she could stop it. Seeing him, touching him, having him undress her on top of some piece of heavy machinery—safe as fantasies, but she was going to get burned if she wanted to make them real.

  He let the pause stretch. “Want to drive out to see the ranch tomorrow?”

  “Aw, you must be too busy to give me a tour.” She was clutching at straws. Of course she wanted to go. She’d wanted to be alone with her fantasy cowboy since the moment she saw his blue eyes.

  They made arrangements to meet the next morning, then reluctantly, awkwardly, hung up. Diana couldn’t tell if she was making the biggest mistake of her life, or just another mosquito-bite-sized mistake. The kind that itched like crazy for a while but eventually faded and let you get back to sleep.

  That had been Tommy, she realized. She’d been so sure that following him to Oregon would answer all her problems, then she landed in Laramie and she could barely remember him. Of course, she’d had Ben-the-cowboy to fixate on. And fantasize about.

  She loved everything about Ben—the way he ducked a little when he took off his hat; the way his ass looked in his jeans; those broad shoulders; those lean hands, calloused and clean; and of course those laser-blue eyes and superhot smile.

  She couldn’t even remember Tommy’s face, let alone how he’d made her feel. It was like Ben was all there was. Him and the damned missing gasket that was keeping her in town.

  It took her a long time to get to sleep that night.

  *

  Diana changed her clothes three times, from her grubbiest jeans to her nicest to a pair she just bought. She looked out the window every ten minutes. April, so it would be chilly, but the sun was out, so maybe she didn’t need her waterproof parka. And forget her hair—up, down, ponytail, loose. She finally bundled it into a sloppy bun and put a baseball cap over it.

  How the hell did you dress for a date with a cowboy fantasy, anyway?

  Ben knocked on her door at exactly noon. When she opened the door, he was more gorgeous even than at the Short Stack. His hat was in his hand, his blue eyes were smiling and he was all male, from his close-cropped hair down to his scuffed boots. He must save the polished ones for town.

  “Hi.” Her smile was so broad it hurt. “You want to come in? I’ve got iced tea.” She held open the door but he shook his head.

  “We should get going. It’s supposed to rain later.”

  Damned sun, taunting her with the promise of a clear day. Diana’s smile dimmed a bit, but she wasn’t going to change her jacket now.

  When he opened the passenger door for her, she was surprised. Ben’s pickup was cleaner than her apartment. She wasn’t sure what she expected—wadded-up fast food wrappers, maybe.

  “Are you from around here?” she asked as he started the engine.

  “Cheyenne.”

  Diana’s mental map wasn’t great, but she thought that was an hour or so east of Laramie. “I’m from Knoxville,” she said.

  When he didn’t say anything, she tried again. “Tell me about this ranch you want to buy.”

  “It’s small. In foreclosure. No cattle, but if I can get the deal I want, I’ll have enough left over to start a small herd.”

  She had to ask. “Are you married?”

  He swiveled hard to stare at her. “No, ma’am. Are you?”

  She shook her head. “I thought, maybe—it’s just that you seem young for a ranch owner.”

  “Gotta start someplace.” His laconic drawl had tightened up.

  “I guess.” Diana reached to fiddle with her hair. When she remembered it was tucked under the hat, she switched moves and nibbled at the edge of her thumb. Jesus, now she was reverting to her high school habits. She folded her hands in her lap.

  “Knoxville,” he said. “That’s in Tennessee, right?”

  “Yeah. My parents teach at the university.”

  “Why were you driving to Oregon?”

  She didn’t feel like explaining about Tommy, the misguided decision to try to rekindle things with him, or her parents’ disdain for her failure to find a career. “I just needed a change of scenery.”

  “What’s home like? Now, in April, I mean. Is it all green and flowery?” He seemed to find it as hard as she did to make conversation.

  Suddenly, Diana relaxed. He was a fantasy. Her gut, which insisted that Ben was important, could go to hell. She was only in town for a few more weeks. A fling with a cowboy—that couldn’t
hurt anybody. “Yeah, it’s pretty back home now. Then it gets hot and muggy in the summer. I like it out here.”

  “You haven’t seen the winters.”

  She turned toward him. His profile, silhouetted against the cloudless sky, seemed so American, so decent, that she was ashamed she could contemplate having a fling with him. He should be sweet on some local girl, not spending time with a grease-loving girl-mechanic who wouldn’t stick around. “Why do you stay here, then? If the winters are so bad, I mean.”

  “It’s in my blood.” He drove for a while, then hunched his shoulders a little. “My dad was a rancher. All I ever wanted to do was work his spread.”

  “What happened?”

  “He died.”

  Diana was shocked. “I’m so sorry.”

  “Thanks.”

  She wanted to ask why he hadn’t inherited, but all kinds of things might be going on. It seemed too personal for a first-date conversation.

  He pulled off the highway onto a road that desperately needed repaving. He slowed way down, but there was no avoiding the ruts and cracks. “Not long now,” he reassured her.

  “It’s okay, I’m just—” she bounced, hard, and grabbed for the door handle, “—admiring the scenery.”

  It actually was stunning—an undulating sea of grass leading to white-tipped mountains, their broad bases a hazy purple in the distance.

  Ben turned off onto a narrow dirt road leading to a large metal-sided building. “This is it. It’s the McGee Ranch. Two hundred acres. They’ve got it set up for haying the entire spread, but it would support a small herd—all the equipment needed for handling cattle is included with the land.”

  “Where’s the house?”

  He stopped the truck and just gazed out the windshield. His expression suggested he’d arrived at Paradise. Finally he glanced at her. “What? Oh, no, there’s an apartment. Eventually I’d build a house, and the hired hands would get the apartment. C’mon, I’ll show you.”

  They got out of the pickup and walked over to the metal building. Close-up, Diana could tell it was like a hangar or shed for massive equipment. She itched to get inside and see what kind of workspace he had. There did seem to be a modest home attached at the far end.

  “Does the equipment come with the property?” she asked.

  “Yup. If I get the deal I want.”

  “Show me.”

  For a girl from Tennessee, everything about a ranch in Wyoming was exotic, but the moment she got in with the equipment, she was in her element. The smell of diesel fuel, the workbench and tidy collection of tools. He even had a compressor for the grease gun. She wished she’d worn her rattiest jeans so she could start playing with his toys. And for once, she wasn’t being euphemistic.

  All too quickly, Ben led them back outside. Clearly his passion was for the land. He walked her around, pointing out various features and rattling off statistics. They ended up in the modest apartment, decorated in cracked linoleum and powder-blue bathroom fixtures. It was clean, though, and with a little work would be a cute home for a bachelor rancher.

  When she got back to the kitchen after giving herself the nickel tour, she found Ben staring out the window at the land.

  “You want this, don’t you?” She came up to stand by his shoulder.

  “It’d be a good start.” A bleakness to his voice caught at Diana’s heart. She knew that feeling, of wanting something she couldn’t have. In her case, she was still trying to figure out what she longed for.

  She touched his elbow, a light stroke of her fingertips, ending with her palm cupped around the joint. He turned to face her. “Then you’ll get it. I know you will.”

  He leaned down, very slowly. She could have stopped him at any time, but she didn’t. She didn’t want to.

  “How can you be so sure?” His voice had almost no sound, just a whisper of breath against her lips. She could read his lips, decipher the message in his eyes.

  “Because I know you.” She was confident about this. Out here—in Laramie, and now out in the middle of the countryside—men could be judged by their actions. Ben’s longing for a ranch of his own—well, it echoed her yearning for a place in the world, a reason to stay in one spot.

  He kissed her. It was sunshine and the start of a new crop of hay. It was the softness of the breeze on a Sunday afternoon.

  It started to rain, and his arms came around her and his mouth opened. She could hear the raindrops on the metal exterior of the huge shed. She could feel his erection against her belly. She kissed him back, pressing her tongue against his, her belly against his groin. She ran her hands under his flannel shirt. When she found a T-shirt under that, she wasted no time pulling it out of his jeans so she could palm his bare skin.

  He broke off the kiss and pressed his forehead against hers. “Diana,” he breathed. “You’re so pretty.”

  “You’re the handsome one.” Her hands traced his back up to his shoulder blades and even into the sleeves of his T-shirt.

  He picked her up and sat her on the edge of the counter. When he stood in the vee of her legs, his erection fit right up against her sex. She curved her legs around his hips. She didn’t want to tell him what to do, but if he couldn’t tell that she was slick and ready for him, that they could fit together perfectly, right here in this eighties kitchen with the cracked linoleum at their feet and his heart’s desire out the window, well, then he wasn’t the man she thought he was.

  Using his grip on her ass, he rubbed against her warmth. Her lower body was going up and down even as his head was shaking side to side. “Not here, not like this,” he muttered.

  She pulled the rest of his T-shirt out of his jeans and tucked her hands against a surprisingly buff midriff. “Why not?”

  “I want you in a bed, with sheets and pillows.”

  She laughed. “Are you being conventional?”

  His beautiful blue eyes crinkled at the corners. He tugged off her cap and released her hair. She put a hand up, instinctively. He finger-combed her shoulder-length dirty-blond hair, smoothing it off her forehead and behind her ears. “No. I just want you naked, on your back, on clean sheets.”

  “So where do you suggest? Your place?”

  He shook his head. “Cheyenne’s too far.”

  “You don’t live in Laramie?”

  He shook his head again. “Just come here to put pressure on the bank. Much good it’s doing me.”

  “My place, then. The sheets are clean.” Thank God she’d changed them this morning, before she went squirrelly about her appearance.

  His answer was to thread his fingers in her hair on either side of her head and kiss her. The image of his face—serious as he looked out the window, solemn as he stared into her eyes, smiling at the accusation of conventionality—was vivid in her mind. She closed her eyes and let his kisses flood her senses. Her taciturn cowboy was a superb kisser. His lips blocked out the rain and clouds and took her back to the heat and urgency of the sun. She opened for him, let him take what he wanted. It felt too good to stop.

  Finally, he pulled her into his arms, his cheek tight against the curve of her shoulder. “Ah, Diana.” Their lower bodies continued to press together so she knew he hadn’t lost any desire to fuck her. She just didn’t think it would be today.

  Conventional and a gentleman. Figured.

  *

  He came to the Short Stack on Tuesday, as usual. Sat in her section again. This time, though, she knew what to ask him, after checking he hadn’t changed his order.

  “Any word from the bank?”

  “No.”

  She shifted her weight from one foot to the other. “What I don’t understand is why Tuesdays and Thursdays?”

  He switched off his ereader. “There’s a committee that decides on foreclosed properties. Happens they meet every Tuesday and Thursday. The bank officer told me they’ll let me know as soon as they get to the McGee Ranch, but my dad always said the squeaky wheel gets the grease. If I show up every Tuesday and Thursd
ay morning, maybe that’ll encourage them to vote on the McGee Ranch sooner. And it means I get to see you.”

  She shied away from his sweet talk. That gasket might arrive that afternoon, and then she’d have no reason to stay. “Aren’t you needed at your dad’s ranch?”

  He looked up at her, his eyes flat and lifeless. “You mean, since my dad died?”

  She nodded.

  “Nope. I’m superfluous at his ranch.”

  Oh. “Which is why you need the McGee Ranch.” She understood all of a sudden. He hadn’t just lost his dad, he’d lost everything that made him get up in the morning.

  Another of her tables was trying to get her attention. She smiled at them that she’d be right over, then she faced Ben. “I get off at four. Can you stick around that long?”

  “Sure.” His eyes did that crinkly thing, which was enough to keep her light-headed for the rest of her shift. She hoped.

  Ben was waiting for her on the sidewalk when she got out the door, nearly mowing down poor Carrie in an indecent rush to join him.

  “Hi.” She pulled up just before bumping into him. Leaning with a shoulder against the lamppost, his hat pulled down to shade his eyes and his thumbs hooked into his belt, he was a postcard image of a modern-day cowboy. If she hadn’t seen him on Sunday, longing for a ranch of his own, she’d have believed he didn’t have a care in the world.

  “You ready?” He straightened and nudged his hat brim with a knuckle. His body language might suggest languor, but his eyes burned for something distinctly more intense.

  “Yes, definitely.” Diana had to keep from attacking him right there on Grand Avenue. Instead, she pivoted so they could walk to her place.

  Instead, he snagged her elbow. “I have the truck.”

  Five minutes later, she let them into her apartment, a ground-floor flat with its own door. The living room overlooked a scrubby lawn in front, her bedroom overlooked a parking space in back, and the whole space looked like it had been furnished from the Goodwill.

  “It’s cheap,” she explained as she led Ben into the living room.