“What in the hell are you doing?” Colleen asked.
“Taking earth to the gypsy fortune-teller,” he said.
“You are crazy and you’re goin’ to get hurt,” she said.
“Not if someone like you don’t blow hot air across my dirt and get it in my eyes,” he said.
He passed the bar and picked up a cauldron.
“Hey!” Jasmine yelled.
“Got to have wind if the folks want their fortunes told,” he said.
“Then take it and be off with you, knight-in-shining-Indiana-hat.” She waved him away.
When he returned, Liz had a deck of cards in her hands, shuffling them. He’d never seen such quick hands or such speed. Colleen couldn’t even put on a show like that and she was a professional blackjack dealer.
Liz spread the cards on the table, quickly picked them back up, and did an air shuffle that reminded her of Blaze. She looked across the table and pictured him sitting there beside Raylen.
She blinked and it was gone, but she couldn’t stop thinking about Blaze. They had shared everything, including one kiss along the way. She was eighteen and both of them had had one too many beers that evening. They’d been scraping and painting wagons all day with Grandpa and they were tired and sweaty from the work inside the warm barn. She’d reached for a beer at the same time he did, and their hands and eyes met somewhere in the middle. Looking back, it was inevitable since they were thrown together so much, but it had been awkward instead of passionate.
When it was over, she wondered why the women acted like momma cats in heat every time they were around him. And he’d wiped the kiss away with the back of his hand.
“I don’t kiss that bad,” she’d said.
“No, but I feel like I just kissed my best friend, or worse yet, my sister.” Blaze laughed.
“Yep, that’s what it felt like,” Liz said.
“Guess we know now that we ain’t meant to be together no matter what Tressa and Marva Jo think,” he’d said.
“Guess so,” Liz had told him.
And that was that. From then on, they talked every night about everything. She heard about his women. He heard about her crushes. She knew when he thought he was in real love with that woman from Amarillo. He knew when she lost her virginity to the son of an air conditioner repairman right there in Claude, Texas, during the winter months. Blaze had held her hair back while she threw up after drinking too much the night she broke up with the boy, and Blaze was the only person in the whole world who knew that she’d harbored a long-time crush on Raylen O’Donnell.
“I’d give a whole quarter for your thoughts right now instead of a penny,” Raylen said.
“Sorry, I was thinking about fortunes,” she said.
Well, she was in a way.
Her future and Blaze’s, anyway.
Creed Riley drew up a chair across the table from Liz and right beside Raylen. “Is it time for the palm reading to begin? My girlfriend just went to the bathroom, but she wants to be first so she sent me to hold her place in line. You don’t look like a witch. And why do you need old Indiana Jones to protect you? If you could really see the future then you’d know if you were in trouble with this feller around you.”
Liz looked up and giggled. “I’m not a witch. I’m a Drabami, that’s gypsy for fortune-teller. There’s a big difference. And Indiana isn’t protecting me; he’s my wingman.”
Creed couldn’t have looked less like Ace’s brother. He had brown hair, green eyes and towered above his older brother. “So why do you need a wingman?”
“I don’t tell people what they want to hear. I tell them what I see, and sometimes they’d just as soon no one else heard what I have to say, so my wingman keeps everyone back about ten feet and turns them loose one at a time. Kind of like one of those good-lookin’ doormen at a fancy big-city club,” she said.
Creed laughed.
His girlfriend, Macy, sat down at the table and plopped her hand out in front of Liz. “Tell me that cowboy is going to make a wonderful husband.” She had a high squeaky voice and blond hair peeking out from behind the Minnie Mouse wig.
Liz fanned the air above the cauldron. “Wind, earth, and fire, descend on us and give us your power to see the future. Show us what lies in the morrow as well as in the distant future.” She shuffled her cards one more time.
“Macy, cut them and then lay out the top card on the table.”
The woman laid out the wine card and Liz said, “You will soon have a cheerful experience. Your birthday must be nearing.”
“Let’s hope the wine means a party before then. My birthday isn’t until the end of March,” Macy said.
“You will have a wonderful, exciting year beginning next spring. You’ll have parties to attend and I see long-distance travel in your future with a new love interest that you will find in one of your trips. There’s a jackpot in your money sector if you take advantage of the financial opportunities. If not, you will find happiness but it won’t be ecstatic happiness.”
“I’m not sure I like this fortune tellin’. It sounds like I’m going to find my true love away from Ringgold,” Macy said.
Liz nodded. “You will be happy if you decide to stay in Montague County but your real happiness and wealth awaits outside of Texas.”
“Now I know this is all bullshit. I’m going to marry Creed and live on a cattle ranch,” she said.
Liz smiled. “Just remember what I said when you travel.”
At midnight Liz had read everyone’s palm except Raylen’s, and she didn’t want to read his or lay out the cards for him either. She’d told Slade’s wife that she would have a third pregnancy which would produce twin boys and Rye’s wife, Austin, that she would have a big family in the next ten years. Colleen’s fortune said that she would marry someone who would take her to faraway places and make her an exotic princess.
“Now what do we do with earth, wind, and fire?” Raylen asked when the party finally broke up.
Liz shuffled her cards and returned them to her pocket. “We return earth to earth, blow out the fire, and turn off the wind with the button on the bottom of the cauldron.”
Gemma sat down and propped her feet up on the table. “Well, darlin’, you made the party tonight. It was the best we’ve ever had. Everyone was talking about what you said. Creed said he’d prove you wrong because his girlfriend was going to marry a cowboy, and Colleen says you are full of shit because she’s never leaving this area.”
“We’ll see.” Liz smiled.
“Me, I want to believe you, darlin’. I want to think that by next Christmas I’ll have found my own special cowboy. Matter-of-fact, I’m going to be damn good this whole year so Santa can bring him to me. I want him to show up on Christmas day wearing nothing but one of those cute little Santa hats and cowboy boots. Whooo-wee, that makes my little hormones whine just thinkin’ about it,” Gemma said.
“God Almighty, Gemma!” Raylen said.
“Yep, he is, but Santa might be almighty too if he can bring me that by next Christmas. I’m goin’ home. We’ll pack up and clean up tomorrow night. Jasmine and Colleen are helping. You want to?” Gemma looked at Liz.
“Sure.”
“Supper is on the house for anyone who helps. It’s leftover party food and whatever Jasmine brings,” Gemma said. “See you tomorrow.”
“I’ll drive you home.” Raylen looked at Liz.
“No need. I drove myself,” she said.
“Then let me drive your truck home and I’ll walk back through the pasture,” he said.
“I didn’t see any devils or blackbirds in the cards.” Liz laughed.
“Blackbirds?” Raylen frowned.
“They signify dire misfortune,” she said.
“Well, there’s crows between here and your place so I better see you to the door.” He laughed.
“Okay,” she agreed. “But that Dalton fellow really should be taking me home since I promised him a dance and got so busy that I never did dance wi
th anyone.”
Gemma took her feet off the table and stood up. “Hey, girl, let Raylen take you home. Dewar got hooked up with Angie Sutter and took her home. I really did think you and him would hit it off but guess I was wrong. Remember what you told him?”
Liz nodded. “That love was on its way to meet him.”
“What’d you tell Raylen? I didn’t hear his fortune,” Gemma asked.
“Didn’t do his. He was my wingman and we didn’t have time to see what the earth, wind, and fire could conjure up for him. We’ll have to read his cards next time around. Good night and thanks for inviting me.”
“It’s me who’s thankin’ you. See you tomorrow at the café,” Gemma said.
Liz and Raylen were both quiet on the way to her house. Raylen had seen the glow around her as she read palms and told fortunes. It was exciting and exotic. He’d be a complete fool to think that she’d ever give up a life like that to be a waitress in Ringgold, Texas, the rest of her life or settle down with a horse rancher either. She belonged in a carnival, not on a Texas ranch.
The evening had plumb worn Liz out. When she worked at the carnival, her hours were different. She worked until midnight, spent an hour locking everything up, another one talking to Blaze or Tressa and her mother, and then slept until midmorning. Tomorrow the alarm would go off at five. It didn’t give a damn if she’d told fortunes until midnight or if she’d gone to bed at ten o’clock. The café opened at six, and customers were usually sitting in their cars waiting for the doors to be unlocked.
Raylen parked the truck and walked Liz to the door, waited while she opened it, and stepped inside without being asked.
“Raylen, it’s late,” she said.
“I want three minutes of your time,” he said.
She cocked her head to one side. “What?”
“I want you to dance for me,” he said.
“You’ve never seen a belly dancer perform?”
He shook his head. “You are so beautiful and I’ve imagined you dancing all evening. Please?”
“Okay,” she agreed.
She picked out a CD, put it into the CD player, and pushed a button. Raylen settled into one recliner while Blister claimed the other and Hooter slept on the floor in between.
Liz went to the middle of the floor and turned her back. When the music started, her hands were up with her shawl tangled up in them and one leg slightly cocked outward. Her body and the music became one entity.
She moved close to him and popped a hip out to brush against his hand.
He smiled.
Putting a hand on each side of the recliner, she did several torso rolls, the sequins and fringe becoming a sparkling blur in constant movement. She knew that she was putting more sexiness into the dance than she had ever done before. It was belly dance and pole dance combined, but she loved the hot desire in his eyes.
His eyes locked with hers and a fine bead of sweat popped out on his upper lip.
She stood up, locked her fingers above her head, and turned her back to him, hips rolling from one side to the other. So he was hot, was he? Well, her skin was on fire from the way his eyes had gone all soft and dreamy. If his eyes could do that to her, she could hardly imagine what sex would be like.
Raylen was so aroused by that time that he was aching. He reached out to touch her, but she moved away and his fingertips barely got a taste of what he wanted.
She swirled in front of his eyes, the scarf becoming fairy wings. One minute it flirted with his face and then was gone before he could capture it with his lips. Another moment it snaked across the pulsating bulge behind his zipper, and even though he couldn’t really feel it, it was a blowtorch that heated him up even more.
All he could hear was the tinkling of her bracelets and the bells on her ankles, a sound that filled his ears with music. She said she couldn’t play anything but a fiddle, but that wasn’t true. She was doing a fine job with silver bracelets and little brass bells strung on an ankle chain.
When the music ended, the shawl was dragging behind her and their eyes were locked together in a heated gaze that said only one thing would ever put the fire out. He grabbed her hand, pulled her to him, and using every bit of willpower he could conjure up, he undressed her without tearing her costume to shreds.
He covered her mouth with his in a series of steaming kisses that just made him hotter and hotter, and every time he opened his eyes, her gaze drew him into her soul even deeper. She undid his belt buckle and unzipped his pants and he settled her onto his erection.
Three thrusts later he groaned, “Liz,” and burst inside her.
“Oh, my God,” he said when he could breathe. Damn it all to hell! She would think he was horrible. He’d practically ripped her clothes off, hadn’t even let her finish undressing him, and then went off like a blasted bottle rocket in less than a minute. Hell, he’d done a better job than that when he was fifteen.
“I’m so sorry.” He buried his face into her hair.
“Round two won’t be so furious,” she whispered.
He covered her mouth with his, his tongue tasting the salty sweat on her upper lip.
“You are amazing,” he whispered hoarsely, already aroused again.
She tangled her fingers in his thick dark hair and lost herself in his kisses. She could feel his hardness and he groaned when she wiggled. She slowly unbuttoned his shirt, taking time to run her palms over the soft, brown chest hair and gently massage his nipples.
“You are killing me, Liz,” he said.
“Consider it payback for those hot kisses that you gave me and then walked away,” she whispered softly in his ear, her breath warm, and her voice seductive.
He groaned and pulled her back to his mouth for another long, lingering kiss.
He groaned. “Liz, I…”
“What?” she whispered as she ran her tongue around his earlobe.
He ran his rough palms over her back. His touch was hellfire and North Pole ice at the same time. “Cold hands, warm heart” came to her mind, but it didn’t hang around. Nothing did. All she could think about was the aching desire right where the belly button diamond had been a few minutes before that wild and furious ride. She arched her back and gasped at the sensation.
She pulled his shirttail the rest of the way from his pants and ran her hands down across his chest, down through the thin line of soft dark hair that extended from taut nipples to belly button.
“My God, that feels good,” he whispered.
“Yes, it does,” she said. “Smooth as silk. Hard as steel.”
He kissed her hard, their bodies melting into each other so tightly that a ray of light couldn’t find its way from one side to the other.
“Bedroom?” he asked.
“Oh, yes.”
He stood up and she wrapped her legs around him, but it didn’t keep him inside. She told herself that it didn’t matter. She would reclaim him in a few minutes, but she missed the connection all the way to the bedroom.
Without breaking the steaming kisses, he carried her to the bedroom. She’d been in a hurry that morning and the bed was a jumble of covers, but somehow he managed to throw them all on the floor, leaving only the fitted sheet on the mattress.
He laid her down and quickly kicked his boots off, removed his jeans, and threw them along with his shirt in the corner. She watched him in amazement. His body was so hard, so muscular, and so damn sexy. He stretched out beside her and gathered her close to his side. It was his turn to tease and make her as hot as he had been and was again.
“You feel good, Liz,” he said.
“So do you, Raylen,” she answered, her voice deep with desire.
His fingers danced down her rib cage. His tongue wrapped around a nipple and brought it to full attention before he moved to the other breast, all the time letting his fingers move like feathers down her body, stopping to massage, to tease, to caress until she was nothing but one big ache that only Raylen could satisfy.
She arched
against him and thought that she was going to explode like he did before he could even get started. Her dance could not have made him as hot as he was making her. If it had, he would have gone up in spontaneous combustion, taking the recliner with him. But she wasn’t going to beg, not yet.
He stretched out on top of her, his erection hard against her belly, and made love to her lips, tongue, and mouth in scorching kisses that left her panting.
“Please,” she whispered.
“Are you sure?”
“Oh, yes,” she gasped.
With a firm thrust he started a rhythm that was too fast, too slow, too passionate, that took her breath from her body. She wrapped her arms around his back and rocked with him as she raked her nails across his flesh. Nothing had ever felt so right in her whole life. Not the first time she’d had sex or any of the few casual affairs she’d had since then. Raylen was the cowboy she’d been waiting for her whole life and…
In that moment she had a flash of sheer, unadulterated fear. What if he thought she was a slutty carnie who went to bed with anyone? What if she’d just ruined her chances of happiness with him?
His mouth covered hers in a string of passionate kisses that fanned the flames already sending her up in blazes and erased every thought from her mind. She arched her back against him and gave herself to the red-hot fire and forgot about what-ifs.
Raylen wanted it to last until the break of dawn, but the long night and too many beers brought it to an end faster than he wanted. Still, it made up for that first disaster.
He gasped at the same time she called out his name and with a shudder collapsed on top of her. Then he rolled to one side but kept her in his arms. She reached across him and picked up the top sheet from the floor and tossed it over them.
He brushed a sweet kiss across her forehead. “Wow!”
“That barely covers it,” she said.
He tipped her chin up. “I’ve wanted to do that since we were teenagers too. I dreamed of you more than once. And you made me so damn hot with that dance that I disgraced all manhood. Oh my God, I didn’t even think about protection, Liz.”
Darn Good Cowboy Christmas Page 11
