Lassoed Into Marriage

by Christine Wenger

  Among other things, he sure could kiss.

  Not that she wanted him to, but she wondered if he’d ever kiss her again.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Two days later at three in the morning they pulled into the big Victorian in Salmon Falls.

  Rose was cranky because they drove around the clock from the last campground in North Carolina. Lisa was pretty cranky herself. She had a pounding headache, and her eyes felt like they’d been through a sandstorm. She was so tired of driving, she didn’t want to get behind the wheel for months.

  Sully was still in good spirits. Then again, when wasn’t he?

  He was whistling as he unloaded the motor home.

  “I’m hungry, Aunt Lisa,” Rose said, near tears.

  “I could make us a snack.”

  “Sounds good, but don’t fuss,” Sully said.

  “I don’t even know how to fuss,” she muttered under her breath, taking mental inventory of the contents of the motor home refrigerator. “How about ham and cheese sandwiches?”

  He hurried by, carrying bags full of laundry even while maneuvering his crutches. “Sounds good to me.”

  “Can I have grapes, too?” Rose asked.

  “I can handle grapes,” Lisa said. “Coming up.”

  She took a plastic bin and unloaded what she could carry from the fridge, including what she needed for their later-than-midnight snack.

  Carrying it all into the kitchen, she put what she needed onto the counter and put the rest away.

  She’d had a fabulous time, but it was great to be back in a house that didn’t move.

  “It’s great to be home, isn’t it?” Sully asked, putting more clothes in the laundry room.

  “You read my mind.”

  “This is the first time I ever called a wood and vinyl building home. I always thought of my motor home as my home.”

  “I barely gave my apartment in Atlanta a thought as we drove through Georgia.”

  Sully removed his hat and slapped it on his knee. “I am so sorry. We could have picked up some more of your things. We were right there.”

  “We couldn’t spare the time for the detour, so I didn’t bring it up,” she said.

  “We could have spared the time,” Sully said.

  “I was too tired of driving, Sully. I just wanted to get home.”

  Aside from a couple of pieces of furniture she’d bought to augment what had come with the furnished apartment, all she had in her apartment were her Cardinal Global uniforms and her clothes.

  If she wasn’t going to be flying for Cardinal anymore, naturally, she’d have to give up her apartment.

  They all sat around the table munching on sandwiches and grapes. Sully popped the top on an orange soda, and they all shared that.

  Rose could barely keep her eyes open to eat the rest of her sandwich.

  “Time for bed, sweetie,” Lisa said, giving Rose a kiss on the forehead.

  “I’ll get her ready,” Sully volunteered.

  “Thanks. I’ll clean this up and take another trip to the motor home.”

  “Leave it. I plugged the rig in. Everything will be fine until tomorrow. We all need some sleep, especially you, Lisa. Go to bed.”

  “Thanks. Don’t mind if I do.”

  Sully whistled softly, then made a high-pitched sound. Snowball and Molly followed them to Rose’s room.

  It was an effort to put one foot in front of the other, but Lisa finally made it to her room. She stared at the big, comfortable bed that she’d have all to herself.

  She opened the windows to let some air in and collapsed on the bed, clothes and all.

  * * *

  One day later, it was time for Sully to go to Connecticut.

  Rose clung to him like a piece of lint, her arms around his neck and her legs around his waist.

  “Don’t go, Uncle Sully. Don’t go.”

  “I have to ride some bulls, you know that, Rosie-girl. You can watch me on TV tonight.” His ride was waiting in the driveway—a cowboy by the name of Justin O’Day. Lisa liked him immediately.

  Rose was crying loudly now. “I don’t want a bull to step on you.”

  “I’ll be extra careful, Rose. Extra careful. And I’ll wave to you on TV. How’s that?”

  Her tears miraculously dried up. “You’ll wave to me?”

  “I sure will. Maybe I can even say your name. Won’t that be fun?” he asked.

  Rose nodded. “I’ll watch you, Uncle Sully. Me and Aunt Lisa will watch you. We’ll make popcorn and have grape juice, and we’ll watch you.”

  “Now that sounds like fun! Too bad I have to go.”

  “It really is,” Lisa said, “but I hope you win.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Now give me a kiss goodbye,” Sully said, and Lisa looked at him wide-eyed. “I meant Rose. Relax, Lisa.”

  She chuckled and waved her hand, like she knew he’d meant Rose all along.

  After Rose kissed him, Lisa gave him a chaste peck on the cheek. “For good luck,” she said.

  “I’ll have double the luck now.” He grinned.

  “Go, you flatterer!”

  He tossed his gear bag and his crutches into the flatbed, then settled into the passenger side of the silver truck.

  “Don’t forget to keep icing your ankle. And have it checked over by sports medicine again. And call Rose. And win. And have a good time but not that good of a time!”

  He laughed. “I understand.”

  Justin O’Day took everything in stride. “Are we ready to go now, Sully?”

  “I have to say goodbye to my family.”

  “I thought that’s what you’ve been doing for the past hour.”

  “Give me more time, O’Day. More time.”

  “We need to get on the road soon,” the young cowboy replied.

  “One more thing.” Sully took Lisa by the arm and led her away from Rose and Justin. “I just want to make sure you’ll be okay with Rose alone.”

  “We’ll be fine,” she said. “But you’d better find a way to wave to Rose, or you’ll be one sorry uncle!”

  “I know. I just have to be a good enough rider to snag an interview.”

  “Go,” she told Sully. “Justin is getting impatient.”

  “I can’t imagine going to a hotel during an event instead of staying in my motor home.”

  “Such luxury!”

  “Not with four or five riders sharing a room.”

  Memories of college dorm rooms came flooding back. “Ha! Good luck with that.”

  “That’s one of the reasons I bought a motor home.” He looked at his rig in the driveway. “Call me if you need me.”

  She held out her hand to him, and he took it. “We’ll be fine.”

  “Take care of yourself and Rose.” He hung on to her hand for what seemed like minutes. He was going to say something, but judging by the slight shake of his head, he changed his mind.

  Lisa wondered what he might’ve said.

  * * *

  “I wanted to ask Lisa to come, Justin. I wanted us to go in the motor home again. Damn, I loved that Fort Lauderdale trip.”

  “Why didn’t you ask her?” Justin asked.

  “We decided that Rose needed stability. She needed to stay put.”

  “Wouldn’t Rose be more stable with both of you together?”

  “Aw, hell, I don’t know. She was so clingy and upset, I wonder if she thought I wasn’t coming back, like her father.”

  “Could be. Lisa had to pry her off you,” Justin said.

  Sully sighed. “I’m not good at this father thing.”

  “It’s hard to mix a family with a job that requires a lot of travel, Sully. You
have to just give in and fly so you can spend more time at home. After Connecticut, the next event is Anaheim. What are you going to do then? Spend five days to get there and five days back?”

  His heart pounded a loud tattoo in his chest, and he couldn’t breathe, couldn’t swallow. Just how did those huge things stay in the sky?

  He sighed. He had to fly for both Lisa and Rose’s sake, but maybe there was another way. A train, maybe.

  “I think you may be right, pard, but I just can’t bring myself to fly.”

  * * *

  The mail was stuffed to the max in the mailbox at the end of the driveway. Lisa wished she’d brought a bag with her, so it wouldn’t be falling out of her hands.

  She sat down at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee and went through it. One of the first things that caught her attention was a little envelope addressed to Rose.

  “Rose, sweetie, you have mail.”

  She was in the living room playing with Snowball and Molly. Oops, Snowball just came running and hid in the laundry room, so it looked like she was done.

  Rose walked into the kitchen, and Lisa handed her the envelope. It took her a while, but several rips and tears later, she pulled a card out of the envelope.

  Lisa looked over her shoulder. “It’s a birthday invitation to Megan’s birthday. It says that Megan doesn’t want any gifts but she requests that everyone bake cookies for the local soup kitchen along with some to pass out. It’s a tea party.”

  Megan was already civic minded at age three?

  “A tea party!” Rose just about swooned. “Can I wear my princess dress and sandals?”

  “I don’t see why not,” Lisa said. “Oh, no! The party is this afternoon.” She re-read the invitation. “It’s in two hours. I have to bake cookies.”

  Lisa found a recipe for peanut butter cookies that looked easy enough. “Everyone stand back. This could get dangerous.”

  Rose giggled.

  Lisa brought out a big bowl and began rounding up stuff for the cookies. She always thought that baking was like one big scavenger hunt. She’d never had everything she needed.

  She thought she’d triple the recipe so she’d have enough. Doing the math in her head, she loaded up the mixer and turned it on.

  It barely moved, and, after a while, she caught a whiff of hot motor oil.

  “Maybe I ought to wait a while,” she said to herself. “Let the machine cool.”

  She decided to pull some of the half-mixed dough out of the mixer. “I think I overloaded it, Rose.”

  Rose was sitting with Molly and Snowball and reading a book. She didn’t care. She just wanted to go to the party and wear her princess outfit.

  Lisa turned the mixer back on, but she forgot to take the spatula out. Dough splashed all over the kitchen. Lisa turned the mixer off and tried to pull the spatula out of the beaters.

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake.” She took the beaters out of the machine and pulled on the spatula. It flew across the room and landed on the floor.

  “I’m just going to mix this by hand. Like pizza dough,” she said under her breath. “I’ve never made pizza dough, but I see them knead it all the time.”

  She did just that and was feeling good about the cookies. She pulled some dough off and made it into a ball, just like the instructions said.

  She filled a cookie sheet and put it in the oven at 350 degrees. Then she filled another. The balls were perfect. She put that cookie sheet into the oven, too.

  Making cookies was a snap. She snapped her fingers.

  “The peanut butter cookies are in the oven, Rose. Easy-peasy.”

  Lisa cleaned the kitchen from the mess. She could have filled another cookie sheet from what was scattered around the kitchen.

  Just then the doorbell rang.

  Lisa wiped her hands on a towel and looked through the peephole.

  Glen Randolph stood at the stoop with a slight scowl on his face as he peered at the chipped red pot of dried pansies sitting on her front porch that was desperate for a drink.

  Lisa hoped the lawyer would see that she was a much better parent than a gardener.

  She looked around the house and noticed how messy it was due to their recent trip, with clothes and storage bins stacked here and there.

  The lawn looked like a hayfield. Sully hadn’t had time to mow before he left. Lisa decided that she could do it, just after the cookies, and the laundry and taking Rose to the party.

  Lisa plastered a smile on her face and opened the door. “Good afternoon, Mr. Randolph. Come in.”

  He walked into the house, and Lisa closed the door behind him. He shook her hand. “Hi, Lisa. How’s everything going?”

  “Great. Couldn’t be better.”

  “I’ve tried to contact you for several days, and I even stopped by, but no one was home. I was getting worried. Until I watched the bull riding on TV and saw you, Rose and Sully there.”

  “We all went to Florida in Sully’s motor home. I apologize. I should have called you.”

  He studied her. “Yes. You should have. Please let me know if you are going to be out of town again.”

  Oops. He was mad. “We will. I am really sorry, Mr. Randolph.”

  “Okay. It’s forgotten, and call me Glen.”

  He turned to look at Rose. She was as cute as a bug on the couch with her book and her pets.

  “I’d like to talk to Rose. Is that okay with you?”

  Lisa held her hand out in Rose’s direction. “Certainly.”

  He sat down next to her on the couch. “Rose, I’m Mr. Randolph. Remember me? I was a friend of your mommy and daddy.”

  “I miss my mommy and daddy.” She held her hand out to pet Snowball, who had obviously decided to venture out of the laundry room where she’d been hiding.

  “I know you do, honey, but Uncle Sully and Aunt Lisa are here for you. Are you doing okay?”

  She shrugged. “I saw Uncle Sully ride a bull. He won. And I met lots of princesses, and I rode the rides and went swimming and lots of stuff.”

  “Sounds like a great time.”

  She looked up at Lisa, who was sitting in a chair opposite the couch. “Aunt Lisa, you have stuff in your hair.”

  Lisa felt her hair. It was loaded with cookie batter. “Excuse me. I’ll be right back.”

  “Lisa, before you go, would you mind telling Sully that I’d like to speak to him, too?” Glen said.

  She swallowed. For some reason, she didn’t want to tell Glen Randolph that he wasn’t here, that he was in Connecticut.

  Rose answered for her. “Uncle Sully is bull riding. We’re going to have popcorn and watch him on TV. I hope he wins. He got hurt, you know.”

  Lisa scooted into the bathroom. She had a glob of batter on top of her head and another chunk dripping down the right side. She really should wash her hair, but for now she took a washcloth and got the worst off.

  She could hear Rose talking to the lawyer about how she liked the trip, how she liked the motor home, how she liked to swim, how she liked the rides and finally how she was looking forward to the tea party this afternoon.

  The cookies!

  She raced into the kitchen and grabbed two potholders.

  “Lisa, is something burning?” Glen asked.

  “Seems like it.”

  Tentatively, she opened the oven door. Burned. Every cookie was burned, and the perfect little balls all ran together like lumpy charcoal.

  Her beautiful trays of peanut butter cookies were a flat, burned mess.

  “I—I just wanted to bake cookies for Rose’s party. They were so beautiful and then...then...” She had more batter. Maybe she could pull this off, after all.

  “It’s my fault. I distracted you.” He walked into the kitchen and surveyed the
mess. “I’m an amateur baker. To me, it looks like your dough is too runny,” he proclaimed. “Just add more flour and return it to the mixer.”

  “I think I burned out the mixer. I made three batches at once.”

  “Try it anyway, a little at a time.”

  The mixer must have healed itself. It was fine. Glen told her to add flour, then some sugar and a dollop of peanut butter.

  “Rose, do you want to help me?” Lisa asked, wanting to involve her in the process.

  “Okay.”

  As the two of them rolled balls, Lisa felt like every move she made was being scrutinized by the lawyer. Eventually, his smile and laughter at Rose’s antics made her relax.

  “I think your problem is that you’re not measuring the flour correctly. I’ll show you later.”

  “Thanks, Glen.”

  Lisa vowed to take a baking class, just after she took a cooking class.

  “And you can’t forget that they are in the oven,” Glen said. “The recipe says ten to twelve minutes. Maybe a timer would help you remember.”

  “I’ll put one on my shopping list.” Lisa put her hand on Rose’s shoulder. “Sweetie, why don’t you read a book to Molly and Snowball?”

  Rose went back to her position on the couch. Molly followed. Snowball was already on the couch, curled up into a ball.

  “Sully should really be here doing this with you and Rose. It’d be a good bonding situation,” Glen said.

  “He really hated to leave, but we talked about him keeping his job and riding the circuit on the weekends. We mutually decided that it’d be okay that he rides, and I’m going to fly charters in the summer when he’s on break.”

  Mr. Randolph rubbed his chin.

  “Did we need to clear our employment with you? You know we have jobs.”

  “No. I was just thinking. It’s a good compromise.”

  “Sully and I both realize that we all need to bond as a family. I think we have a strong start. The trip we just took in close quarters, in Sully’s motor home, was a shortcut to bonding.” She smiled. “Rest assured, Glen, that we are doing fine.”

  “Excellent.” He checked his watch. “It’s time to take the cookies out of the oven.”

  With potholders in hand, and holding her breath, she opened the oven. “They are magnificent! And they really look like cookies!”