He sat in the lawn chair a few more seconds, watching Milli in tight, cut-off blue jean shorts and a cotton shirt tied up in the middle, showing off a couple of inches of midriff. He shut his eyes and imagined damp, tangled sheets in the back room of a trailer house, and the fire that had burned for more than two years even when he thought she was nothing more than a dream. Then the smell of rain and fresh hay sent his senses reeling as he remembered the morning they spent together in the barn. It was beginning to look like they wouldn’t have time to be together now until after the wedding. Not even for a simple dinner and a couple of hours in a motel.
She leaned down and kissed the scar on the top of his head where the new hair was still shorter than the rest of his unruly mop of curls. “Whatever are you thinking about?”
“Loving you,” he answered honestly.
The next morning Milli was ready to go and opened the door as Beau raised his hand to knock. “Come on in. Maybe we’ll make a motel stop on the way.”
“With Katy?”
“Just kidding, but I wish I wasn’t. Granny, is Katy finished with breakfast?” she called over her shoulder. “Don’t forget to give her a teaspoon of the medicine on the table.”
“Oh, so we’re flying?”
“Yep, we’re flying.”
Mary carried Katy into the living room and handed her to Beau. “Here she is, fed and doped up for the trip. Y’all be careful now. And give us a call when you get there, Milli. I know you’re careful, but I always worry.”
“Sure thing, Granny.”
“Let me have the baby and you grab your bags.”
“My truck or yours?” he asked.
“Mine.”
“Got a kiss for me before you go?” Jim asked.
She hugged him tightly and planted a kiss on his forehead.
“See you late tomorrow or Monday morning, depending on the weather. Traveling ought to be a breeze. You could stay a couple of days extra. Just a few more acres of hay and the boys could take care of it,” Jim said.
“Are you trying to get rid of me?”
“Just trying to give you some time away from all us old codgers,” Mary said. “A couple of more days wouldn’t hurt a thing. Few parties. Little courting. Lord, y’all ain’t had time to even kiss each other good night since you got engaged.”
Now’s a fine time to notice. Milli almost groaned.
“We’ll see.” She waved goodbye one more time.
“Where’s your stuff?” Beau asked when he put his suitcase, garment and boot bag in the back of her truck.
“Already loaded.” She drove the truck around the house and down a dusty lane toward the open back pasture.
He held onto the door handle as they bumped along the rough path with only tire tracks for a road. “Hey, this ain’t the way to west Texas.”
“Yes, it is. See?”
“Where did that come from? I didn’t know Jim had a plane.”
“Jim don’t. I do. There ain’t no sense in us driving all the way there. Flew it in here at the beginning of summer. Poppy don’t really like for Katy to fly, but it’s faster and I thought I might need to do a little crop dusting for him while I was here. So we flew and one of the hired hands brought my truck and Wild Fire in for me. Haven’t done any dusting yet, but Katy and I did fly home last month while you were up in Kansas. But surprise, surprise. You get your own crop duster in the marriage contract. And I won’t even make you sign a paper saying that you won’t try to get half of my plane if we split the blanket in a few years.”
“You are the pilot?”
“You’re lookin’ at it. Like I said last week, it’s your turn to chew your fingernails.”
Beau really didn’t like to fly, not even in the big commercial planes. The only time he’d been up in something this small was with a crop duster once, and he swore on a stack of Bibles he’d never set foot in anything that small and bumpy again.
She opened the truck door. “Oh, stop your worrying. I’ve got the manual in the cockpit that’s got a whole section of troubleshooting if we have a problem. You can read it to me and we’ll work everything out.”
“How long you been doing this?”
“Oh, I’ve been up alone two or three times now.”
“Milli…”
She opened the door to the passenger side of the truck. “Beau, if you’re going to marry me forever amen, you’ve got to trust me. Get the baby and follow me. I promise I won’t do any stunts and make you or Katy upchuck.”
His eyes were as big as flattened cow patties. “Stunts?”
She unhooked the seat belt from Katy’s car seat. “Come on, sweetie. Let’s show Daddy the world between here and Hereford, Texas.”
His feet were concrete inside his boots as he climbed into the plane. It had one small seat in addition to the pilot and co-pilot seats. Katy squealed with delight when Milli put her into her familiar place. She picked up a stuffed elephant and hugged it close and looked up out of the bubble-type window, waiting for the big, puffy white clouds she liked so much. Beau wished that same exuberance could replace the chunk of cold steel taking up the space where his stomach used to be.
“You are the co-pilot, Beau. Sit right here beside me. And you are given permission to pop your little thumb into your mouth anytime and begin to chew your nails or even suck your thumb if it makes you feel better. I didn’t bring any security blankets, though.”
“Milli…”
She put her hands on his cheeks and turned his face so that he had to look right into her eyes. “Beau, today, I’m the pilot and you’re the co-pilot. We’re a team, like we’re going to be forever. I’ve been flying for ten years. I did my first solo when I was thirteen years old, and I’ve been stunt flying for three years. Trust me, darling.”
He buckled up the seat and watched her adjust everything as she got ready for takeoff. “Okay. Is there anything you can’t do?”
“I don’t knit.”
“Knit?”
“That’s right. I do not knit. I tried it once. My English grandmother said all young women should knit and in thirty minutes I was so damned mad and she was so frustrated, we threw the whole thing in the corner. Rotten string wrapped itself around my fingers and tried to crawl up to my throat and choke me plumb to death. Acted like some kind of python snake, trying to smother me, so Grandy and I decided I’d just have to be imperfect. You’re not going to break the engagement because I’m not perfect, are you?”
“Ain’t damn likely.” He managed a weak chuckle as they took off, making a smooth ascension up into the light blue summer sky complete with a few marshmallow clouds just for Katy.
The drop on the concrete runway at the Lazy T ranch was just as smooth, and Beau looked out to see two pickup trucks and a silver Cadillac parked and waiting.
“What’s all this?”
She shut off a dozen buttons, and turned to look at Katy. “They’ve come to meet you and to take us to the house. Katy is awake. That’s wonderful. Usually she sleeps part of the trip and at least an hour after we get home.”
“My daddy. Want my daddy.” Katy reached for Beau.
They stepped out of the plane like they went everywhere lately: Katy hugged up to Beau’s left shoulder and his right arm possessively around Milli’s shoulder. But the minute Katy saw her grandmother, she held out her arms and wiggled so hard Beau about dropped her.
The woman kissed her all over her fair face. “Nanny missed you so much.”
“Momma, this is Beau,” Milli said with a note of pride in her voice. “And Beau, is my dad, John Torres.”
“Pleased to meet you both.” Beau shook hands with John, but Angelina insisted on a hug.
Angelina Torres was the same height as Milli, but her eyes were a lighter shade of brown. John was only a couple of inches taller, but his handshake was firm and steady, and Beau could tell he’d put in a lot of hard days on the ranch by the way his shirtsleeves hugged his biceps.
Milli introduced the next tw
o people in the line. “And this is my brother Andy and his wife, Jana. They’ve have been married ten years.”
“Since you first flew.”
Andy’s handshake was firm. “That’s right. She was a hellion even back then. She should have been a firstborn son instead of a baby girl.”
Milli pushed him but he didn’t waver. “You’re just jealous because you can’t fly.”
“And these are our daughters,” Jana said. “Tammy is eight and Casey is six.”
Tammy’s brown eyes glittered in adoration when she looked at her aunt. “And I’m going to fly just as soon as Aunt Milli can teach me. And someday I’m going to do the stunts at the fair.”
“I bet you will,” Beau said. “You, too, Casey? You going to fly?”
“Hell, no,” the prissy little girl said. “Ain’t no damn way I’m going up in a plane like that. I’m going to marry a millionaire and drip diamonds and have a jet airplane to take me everywhere.”
Her mother swatted her on the bottom. “Casey, I’m going to make you stay in your room at the party tonight if you cuss any more.”
Casey winked the same way Milli did. “Oh, all right,” she said.
The other brother stepped forward with his hand extended. “And I’m James. I can sure tell you’re Katy’s daddy. It’s amazing how much she looks like you.”
“Thanks,” Beau beamed.
“And this is my wife, Laura, and our kids - Jimmy, who is six, just like Miss Potty Mouth. And Jeremy, who’s five.”
“And that’s the whole bunch of us right now,” Milli said. “Not so formidable now, are we? There’s only eight new faces. There were ten million at the Circle L last week, Daddy. And I’m only exaggerating a little bit. There were so many blondes there it scared me. Felt like I was the only chicken at a coyote party. And, Momma, he’s got five brothers and they’ve all got kids and you can’t kick a bush over in that part of the country without a dozen Luckadeaus running out and they’re all blond except for one who has a white streak in his hair. And I’m never going to remember all their names.”
She put her arm around her mother’s shoulders and they started off toward the Cadillac. She grabbed Beau’s hand and dragged him along.
“Come on Beau. Don’t just stand there. They’ll all find their way out of here. And you know what else, Momma? There ain’t one baby granddaughter except Katy and she’s going to be so rotten the garbageman won’t even haul her to the dump by the time she’s grown.”
Milli and Angelina crawled into the big back seat and chattered all the way to the house about the wedding. John shook his head and grinned at Beau. The ranch house wasn’t so very different from the one on the Bar M - long and low, but a wide porch wrapped around it on three sides. Beau liked the porch so well he began making plans to add a verandah to his house.
John showed him to a room at the end of the hall. “This is your room. Bathroom is through there and if you need anything, holler right loud. And Beau, we’re glad things are working out for you and Milli. Been a long time since she’s talked that much. Just got quiet and serious and we didn’t see many smiles this past two years. We’re glad you’ve put the glow back in her face and the shine back in her brown eyes. If she would’ve told us who you were, I promise you would have known about Katy a lot sooner, but she’s as stubborn as a mule when she sets her head,” John told him.
“She sure is. If I’d known about Katy I’d have been here, too, sir. I’ve been hopelessly in love with your daughter for two years. I looked all over the southern half of the state for her. But I thought her name was Amelia Jiminez.”
“Life sure has a funny way of dealing the cards, don’t it, son? When you quit looking, there she was on the farm right next door. We got a community party tonight. Women been working all week on the barn, trying to make it look like a fancy hotel. Band cranks up at six and it’ll be daylight before some of these folks go home. Us Mexicans make a party out of everything we can, and make it last as long as possible.”
John shut the door gently and Beau could hear Milli’s clear laughter floating down the hail as she and her mother disappeared into a room right across the hall from him.
He exhaled forcefully and plopped backwards onto the bed. She was a good pilot, and he hadn’t minded the ride any more than if he’d really been in big plane. Who knew how many more surprises she would pounce upon him in the next few years? Life with her was sure going to be a roller coaster. He heard a faint tap on his door but before he could sit up and say a word, she’d slipped into the room.
She stretched out beside him on the bed. “Wasn’t so bad, now was it? Nobody brought a new rope to string you up from the nearest mesquite tree, and Daddy didn’t even load the shotgun.”
She snuggled closer to his side, unbuttoned a couple of buttons in the middle of his shirt so she could slip her hand inside to feel the hair on his chest.
“You got two hours to stop that.”
She kissed the end of his nose and fluttered a butterfly kiss across his cheek. “In two hours, darlin’, we’d be doin’ more than this. Get on your work boots and jeans and a T-shirt. We’re going out to look at my herd and discuss what we want to do with it.”
He wrapped his arms around her. “I’d rather stay here and start a new herd.”
She was on her feet before he could kiss her again. “Me, too, but it won’t happen in this house, trust me.”
She gave him the royal tour of the ranch, introducing him to all the hired help along the way, and showed him her herd of registered white-faced cattle.
“What do you think?”
“Good cattle. Jim wouldn’t cull a one of them.”
“We can transport them to the Bar M without too much trouble. Take a couple of trips, but the ranch owns two cattle semis.”
“We’ll section off a chunk of land for them and keep them separate from the Angus. You’ve got some prize stock here, lady,” he said.
“I’m lookin’ at prize stock. Those are just cows,” she teased.
“Much more talk like that and honey, I’m going to do a Indian rain dance right here,” he said.
“What?”
“Rain, honey. I see a barn right over there, and if it was raining too hard for us to get back to the ranch…?”
“Can you show me how to do that dance?” she asked.
Her father drove up on a four-wheeler before he could answer and talk went to cattle and ranching. Before long they were ushered back to the house to get ready for the party. The band had arrived and the first few strands of music were drifting across the yard from the barn, when he heard another rap on his door, and opened it to find Milli standing before him in the same lace dress she had worn to the wedding. Her hair was up and he gasped, knowing if he blinked even for a minute, she would be gone like a puff of smoke on a clear, sunny day.
He had part of the buttons fastened on his shirt. Her fingers strayed to the soft fur on his chest. Surely nothing could go wrong at a Torres party, but she’d thought the same thing the previous week. Everything was perfect and nothing could ever make her have a single doubt again. Then there was Jennifer in the shadows with her hands all over Beau, and for a moment, the old fears had returned with a vengeance.
“Let me help you with those buttons. Now, you look just like one of those goodlookin’ men on the Marlboro commercials in the magazines. All you need is your horse and a felt hat. I better go polish my six-gun. All these female cousins of mine are going to see a tall, blond feller and make a play for you. I’ll need something to keep them at bay.”
“You mean there’s more just like you? Is there one who’s not so blasted stubborn? Maybe I’d be willin’ to work out a deal.”
“Over my dead body, cowboy. You look cross-eyed at one of those girls and I’ll scratch her eyes out and shoot you graveyard dead. Either you belong to me or you belong to no one.”
“Sounds like you better chase your pretty little butt on out to the barn and get the branding iron and heat it
up. Womenfolks see a brand on me, they might not be in the mood for rustling.”
“If they think they can rustle what belongs to me, they’ll end up just like your sweet little Amanda. On her scraggly old rump in the dust. Now let’s go. If we stay in here too long Andy and James will come bustin’ in the door with a shot gun and a preacher.”
“Sounds like a winner to me. We wouldn’t have to wait another day,” he said.
And I wouldn’t have to worry that someone might still come along and steal you right out from under my nose There’s always the old “luck” in everything but not lucky in love” thing sitting on my shoulder, and I’m scared out of my boots that I’m going to lose you, my darling.
He took her arm and they went out to the barn.
“And now here comes our honored couple,” the lead singer said into the microphone and everyone clapped loudly when they walked through the doors.
Beau was surprised to see so many people. The barn was filled to capacity and those on the dance floor parted to let Milli lead him into the center.
“Milli has requested a special song to dance with her fiancé on this night. So here it is, an old song by Trisha Yearwood. She says it’s the song that made her realize she was about to make the biggest mistake of her entire life. Beau, you are a lucky man,” the female lead singer said.
Milli looked up into his eyes as they danced to “How Do I Live” and there wasn’t anyone else in the barn. They were alone in their own world where only two hearts beat in unison. At the end of the song, she kissed him gently. Beau really was branded. Milli Torres had her mark on him forever.
The applause brought them back down from the clouds to reality and they bowed gracefully as the band started to play the song one more time just like she’d told them. She wrapped her arms tightly around his neck and snuggled her face into his chest where she sang softly to him as they swayed gently to the music one more time.
When the song ended the band broke into a lively number by Shania Twain, “Any Man of Mine.”
Lucky In Love Page 22
