Good Time Girl

by Candace Schuler

  Tom and Roxanne stood silently, not looking at each other, listening as Jo Beth started up the engine of the shiny green truck—not revving it the way Roxanne would have—made a Y-turn in the graveled yard, and drove sedately away.

  “So. That’s little miss Texas A&M with the degree in animal science. Rooster was right. She’s very pretty.” Roxanne picked up the spoon sitting neatly in the spoon rest on the kitchen counter and dipped it into the pot on the stove. “And she makes great chili, too. I can certainly see why you’re thinking of marrying her.”

  “For the last time, I am not thinking of marrying her,” he said. And it was the absolute truth. He wasn’t thinking of marrying her. Not seriously. Not anymore.

  “Really?” The spoon still clutched in her hand, Roxanne turned around to face him. “Well—” She leaned back against the counter, folded her arms over her chest, and crossed one booted ankle over the other. “You’d better start running, then, because she’s certainly thinking of marrying you, sugar.”

  ROXANNE TOLD HERSELF that if she had any pride or self-respect, she’d have left the Second Chance right after Jo Beth did. She’d have demanded the keys to that rattletrap old pickup parked out in the yard, driven herself to the municipal airport and gotten on a plane for Dallas. Instead, there she was, tucked up in one of a narrow pair of twin beds in an attic room with steeply slanted ceilings and a single dormer window overlooking what appeared to be the north forty. The walls were painted pale green, the floors were hardwood, the bedspreads were patchwork quilts, the furniture was rich golden oak, and the bedsteads were painted white iron.

  And she was lying in one of them, dressed in nothing but her leopard-print underwear and a dab of Passion behind each knee, waiting for all the kids to go to sleep so Tom could sneak up and join her. She’d obviously become a slave to her hormones. Or a slave to his, she wasn’t sure which.

  She’d been about to throw the chili spoon at his head—she’d had her hand cocked back, ready to let fly—when he’d started across the room in that slow deliberate way he had, moving with that loose-kneed, hip-rolling, purposeful cowboy swagger of his that always made her mouth water, and curled his fingers around her wrist.

  “I swear to God, Slim. There’s nothing between Jo Beth and me. I’ve never given her any reason to think there was,” he said earnestly.

  And then he kissed her. He didn’t lean into her, or grind his pelvis against hers. He didn’t let his hands wander to her breasts or her butt or between her legs. He just kissed her.

  Completely.

  Thoroughly.

  At length.

  Lips and tongue and teeth, all nibbling and licking and nipping at hers, making hot, sweet love to her mouth with nothing but his mouth, the way he had that last night in Cheyenne. She gave in to it without a murmur of protest, coiling her arms around him like a lariat when he let go of her wrist to cup her head and tilt it to a better angle. They didn’t break apart until the screen door screeched on its hinges and half a dozen boys of various sizes and shapes trampled into the kitchen like a herd of rambunctious young cattle.

  “Tom has a girlfriend. Tom has a girlfriend,” little Petie singsonged, making Roxanne wonder if he’d been chanting the words ever since Tom sent him chasing off after the other boys.

  Jared hooked an arm around the smaller boy’s neck. “Give it a rest, kid,” he said, and slapped his hand over Petie’s mouth.

  A brief tussle ensued, ending with Petie giggling delightedly as he dangled upside down over his new best friend’s shoulder. His new best friend, Roxanne noted, who was wearing a battered black cowboy hat in place of his baseball cap. She glanced at Tom to see if he’d noticed. His secret smile of satisfaction told her he had.

  “I brought your gear in,” said Augie, the responsible one, as he hefted the two bags up on the end of the table. “Where do you want me to put hers?”

  “Please don’t bother putting it anywhere,” Roxanne said, mindful that the boy still regarded her with suspicion. “I can take it myself, if you’ll just tell me where.”

  “We use the dormer room for guests,” Augie said. “It’s all the way at the top of the stairs. In the attic.”

  “It’s small, but it’s private,” Tom added, “and you’ve got your own bathroom up there.”

  “We came in to get something to eat,” one of the smaller boys said, tired of all the adult chitchat.

  All eyes turned to the three pies cooling on the table.

  “After dinner,” Tom said, before they could ask. “If you’re hungry now, have an apple.” He grabbed one out of the big wooden bowl sitting on the tiled kitchen counter and led by example, biting into the crisp green Granny Smith. “We’ll be out in the barn.” He dropped a quick kiss on Roxanne’s lips. “Holler if you need any help figuring out Jo Beth’s instructions about the chili,” he said, and pushed open the creaky screen door.

  Roxanne would have thrown the spoon at him then, except that there were children present and she didn’t want to set a bad example. Instead, she stirred the chili and contented herself with a hidden smirk over the smear of chili sauce he wore across the back of his shirt.

  She carried her bag upstairs to the dormer room tucked up under the eaves and unpacked, shaking out her clothing and hanging it up in the lovely old-fashioned armoire that graced nearly the whole of one wall. She tidied up in the tiny but nicely appointed connecting bathroom, then headed back downstairs to the kitchen.

  Since she didn’t have anything else to do, anyway, and nothing else to occupy her time, she prepared a large tray of crudités and rolled out a mammoth batch of fluffy made-from-scratch biscuits just to prove that little miss Texas A&M wasn’t the only one who could cook. Not that she hadn’t proved it already—and quite well, too, she thought—but grilled chicken breasts and salads were a far cry from chili and cherry pies, especially with a bunch of boys. She considered dropping the pies on the floor and calling it an accident, but good sense prevailed when she realized she had neither the time nor the ingredients necessary to whip up one of her famous chocolate-fudge cheesecakes to replace them.

  It was then, when she caught herself wondering if chocolate-fudge cheesecake would tip the balance in her favor and make him fall in love with her, that she realized there was no probably about getting her heart broken. It was going to happen. It was only a matter of timing. Now, or six weeks from now, it was going to happen.

  And that’s when she should have headed out to the truck and taken off for the airport.

  Instead, she was lying in a strange bed under the eaves, listening for the telltale creak of the attic stairs and wondering just how long it took a dozen young boys to fall asleep.

  TOM WAS BEGINNING to think the boys would never get to sleep. Lord knew, they should all be dead tired. He certainly was. Or would be, if he weren’t looking forward to creeping upstairs to the attic bedroom. After supper, he’d taken Petie and two of the other boys to the hospital with him to see the Padre. It had been an emotionally charged experience, with Petie starting in to cry as soon as he saw the Padre in the hospital bed, hooked up to all the various drains and IVs, looking frail and bruised and sick. The other two boys, being nine and eleven respectively, had struggled manfully against their own tears and managed to keep them to a few discreet sniffles, wiped off on their shirtsleeves when they thought no one was looking. Tom wished he’d been blessed with Petie’s lack of inhibitions; he would have liked to howl, too, and let the nurse carry him off to get a soda pop out of the vending machine at the end of the hallway.

  Instead, he waited until the other two boys trailed Petie and the nurse out into the hall and put his hand over the frail veined one laying so quietly against the sheets and squeezed gently. “How you feeling, Padre?”

  “I feel like I’ve been kicked in the chest by a bad-tempered bronc,” the old man grumbled. “How the hell else would I feel?”

  Tom felt the tight knot of tension inside him give way. Despite the hospital bed and the tubes an
d the monitoring machines, the Padre was the same irascible, indomitable, straight-from-the-cuff kind of man he had always been. “You gave everybody quite a scare,” Tom said.

  “I gave myself quite a scare,” the Padre admitted. “Thought for sure I was a goner. If it hadn’t been for Jared, yelling for somebody to call 9-1-1, I would have been. You be sure to let the rest of them know I said that, you hear? They’ve been riding him pretty hard these past few months. Testing the new kid out, just like they always do. Not that he doesn’t give it back to them, just as hard as they dish it out, but I’ve thought for sure, a couple of times, that he was going to rabbit on us. I wouldn’t like to lose him.”

  “I don’t think you have to worry about that anymore. Before supper tonight, he was ridin’ Petie on his shoulder and wearing Augie’s old black hat.”

  “Oh, that’s good. That’s real good. He’s a good kid, deep down. He’s got real potential.”

  “You think they’ve all got potential.”

  “And they all do,” he said, with utter conviction. “You’ve just got to help them find it.”

  Petie came back into the room then, trailed by the other two boys. He seemed to have regained his equilibrium, and came right up to the edge of the bed, more curious than scared now. “Tom’s got a girlfriend,” he said, wanting to be the first to impart the news.

  “Does he now?” The Padre slanted a glance at Tom. “What’s her name?” he asked Petie.

  “Roxy.”

  “Roxy, huh? Is that a new one?”

  “Well, I ain’t never seen her around before.”

  “Haven’t ever,” Tom corrected automatically.

  “I haven’t ever seen her around before,” Petie repeated obediently. “She’s kinda skinny, but I like her hair. It’s the same color as Goldie’s tail.” Goldie was a gentle old palomino mare all the Second Chance kids learned to ride on. “And she makes real good biscuits. I had about ten of ’em.” He took a sip of his soda pop. “Tom was kissin’ her in the kitchen before supper.”

  The Padre uttered a bark of delighted laughter. It ended in a wheezing cough that had him grasping his chest. “I’m all right,” he said, waving Tom back down when he jumped up to summon the nurse. “I’m all right, damn it. It just hurts when I laugh, is all.”

  Tom summoned the nurse, anyway.

  “I think you’ve had just about enough visiting for tonight, Padre,” she said severely. “Say good-night to your guests and we’ll get you ready for bed.”

  “I’ll say good-night when I’m damned good and ready to say good-night,” he groused, “and not a damned minute sooner.” He motioned for Tom to lean closer. “This new girl of yours with the palomino hair, she wouldn’t happen to be the little firecracker Rooster told me about, would she?”

  “I don’t know,” Tom hedged. “What did Rooster tell you?”

  “Only that you were so smitten you couldn’t see straight,” he said, and began to wheeze again at the expression on Tom’s face. “You bring her to see me, you hear?” he ordered, clutching his chest with one hand and waving the nurse off with the other. “I want to get a look at her.”

  The nurse stood firm and shooed them all out into the hall.

  And now Tom had a word for his feelings about Roxanne. He was smitten, that was all. Besotted. Infatuated. Perhaps even a little bit obsessed. But he was not, thank God, in love. Not love with a capital L, anyway.

  SHE WAS ASLEEP when he finally judged it safe to sneak up the stairs. She lay on her side on top of the covers on the narrow bed, in her ridiculously sexy underwear, with her knees drawn up like a child and her hands tucked under her cheek. The bedside lamp cast exotic shadows over her face, giving her a look of mystery that was excitingly at odds with the prim, little-girl position of her body. The ceiling fan turned lazily overhead, causing just enough air movement to ruffle the edges of her tangled blond mop. She was adorable and sexy and inexplicably dear.

  He tiptoed across the room, meaning only to turn out the light she’d left on and kiss her good-night before creeping back down the stairs to his own bed, but her eyelids fluttered open at the butterfly brush of his lips against her cheek.

  “Hey, cowboy,” she whispered, and smiled at him.

  “Hey, Slim” he said, and nuzzled her nose with his.

  Their lips met briefly, parted, then met again and clung. Without breaking the second kiss, he stretched out beside her and took her into his arms. Their loving was sweet and slow and careful, there on the narrow bed in the tiny attic room, both of them more than a little tired and mindful of the need for discretion with a houseful of children sleeping in the rooms below them. There was no frantic writhing or muffled screams or graphic words of lustful encouragement and appreciation. Instead there were soft rustlings, and softer sighs and softly murmured words. When it was over and contentment had mellowed them both and soothed the jagged edges of the day, he turned her onto her side and spooned her from behind, cuddling her close to his heart.

  “Did I remember to thank you for dinner?” he whispered into her hair.

  “Yes.” She yawned. “I believe you did.”

  “I was only teasing you about the chili, you know. I didn’t actually expect you to go ahead and make supper for all those kids.”

  “Yes, I know,” she said, which was partially—okay, mostly—why she’d done it. To show him that anything Jo Beth could do, she could do better. Or just as well, anyway.

  “Those biscuits were the best I’ve ever tasted. The boys liked them, too. Petie told the Padre he ate ten of them.”

  “It weren’t nothin’,” she drawled modestly, feeling the warm glow of his praise wash over her.

  She felt his chest move as he chuckled against her back. “You could have knocked me over with a feather when I walked in the kitchen and saw those two huge plates of biscuits setting on the table next to Jo Beth’s chili. I’d never have pegged you as the down-home domestic type if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes.”

  “Oh, really?” She felt the warm glow fade a little, wondering if he’d suddenly forgotten all those meals she’d cooked on the road the past couple of weeks. Didn’t that count as domestic? Or were grilled chicken and salads lower on the domesticity scale than chili and cherry pie? “What type do you have me pegged as?”

  “Oh—” she felt him skim a hand through her hair, lifting it away from her head and letting it fall back “—one of those pampered trust-fund babies, I guess,” he said, basing his assessment on her effortless high-tone polish even in bright-red boots and skintight jeans, and a vaguely remembered mention of a stock portfolio and household staff. “The kind born with a silver spoon in her mouth, with servants to do the cooking and cleaning. And no need for you to do anything except collect your stock dividends and have a good time.”

  The warm glow turned into a cold lump in the middle of her chest. Was that really what he thought of her? That she was some useless parasite who spent her life partying? And wasn’t that exactly what she’d intended him to think when she picked him up at Ed Earl’s? That she was a carefree, fast-living, good-time girl? Talk about being hoist on your own petard! She’d played the role so well, he couldn’t see through it to the real her.

  “Am I close?” he probed, hoping she’d tell him he was way off base, hoping she would say that the woman who’d scolded them about their lousy eating habits, and did their laundry with hers, and read to them on the road was the real her. That the woman who’d competently and cheerfully made dinner for a dozen hungry boys was who she really was under the high-tone polish and sexy exterior.

  That woman might actually want to stay and make a life with him on the Second Chance; the trust-fund baby would be gone in six weeks, eager to get back to her life of ease and privilege.

  Roxanne knew she could tell him he was wrong, of course. Except that he wasn’t, completely. The picture he painted was just true enough—except for the partying part—that she wasn’t able to deny it. “Close enough,” she said, and managed
an insouciant little laugh to cover her dismay.

  She felt him sigh against her neck, and then, a moment later, he raised himself up on an elbow and leaned over her shoulder. “I’d better get out of here before I fall asleep and blow our cover.” He kissed her cheek and slipped out of bed, heading down the stairs to greet the dawn in his own room.

  Roxanne lay there after he had gone, staring at the moonlight shining in through the dormer window, and wondered why her heart felt as if it had already started to crack.

  “DO WE HAVE TO do this now?” Roxanne asked, sounding, even to her own ears, like a whiny little kid. She tried to inject a little adult rationality into her voice. “I mean, really, wouldn’t it be better to wait until he’s out of the hospital?”

  She’d already decided—almost—that she’d be gone by then. It would be much better to leave now, before the summer was over, rather than drag it out for the remaining few weeks. They could end it on a high note, leaving each other with happy memories of hot sex, good times, and lots of laughter. If she stayed much longer, she had a sneaking suspicion it would end in tears. On her part, anyway. And that would be a damned undignified end to her Wild West adventure.

  “A string of visitors all day long can’t be good for a man who’s just had a triple by-pass,” she said. “And I’m sure he’d rather see one of the boys instead of me, anyway.”

  “He asked me specifically to bring you in for a visit.”

  “He asked to see me?”

  “Actually, it was more of an order.” Tom slanted a quick glance at her as he maneuvered the pickup into an empty spot in the parking lot. “He said he wants to get a look at you.”

  “Get a look at me?” She got a hunted look in her eyes. “Why?”