“So,” I said, unbuckling my seat belt, “you seemed very proficient with that lock back there. Am I right in guessing I’m not the first girl you’ve brought here?”
He leaned over and kissed me. “How about if you’re the last?”
“I could live with that.”
“Actually, you’re the first girl I’ve ever brought here in this truck. My dad would never let me drive it.”
“This is the first time you’ve ever driven it?”
He gave an embarrassed smile. “Actually, the second. The first time was the October after my dad died. I took the keys out of Mom’s purse, and Rob and I and two six-packs of beer went dragging Douglas.”
“Dragging Douglas?”
“Douglas Street in Wichita. Back then, it was the place to cruise your car and be seen. On the way back, I hit a slick spot out on the highway and drove it into a ditch. That’s the thing that finally convinced my mom I might be better off staying with my uncle Tony in California.”
I ran my hand down his thigh. “Fate. If that hadn’t happened, we probably wouldn’t be together right now.”
He covered my hand and pressed it into his leg. “Probably not.”
“We should get back. Everyone’s going to wonder where we are.”
“Let them wonder.” He brought my hand up to his lips and nibbled on the back of my wrist. “I think I’d like to sit here a little longer.”
“Oh, I see your hidden agenda now.” His lips moved higher, to the crook of my elbow.
“Nothing hidden about it,” he murmured.
“Well, I always did have trouble resisting a good-looking cowboy in a pickup truck.”
He made a disgusted sound in his throat, pulled off his hat, and threw it to the floor. “I meant it when I said I wouldn’t be wearing these clothes after tonight, so you can just put that thought right out of your head. I might own a truck now, but I am not a cowboy. I don’t think like one, don’t eat like one, don’t walk like one, and certainly don’t talk like one. Never have. Never will.”
I ran my fingers through his coarse black hair. “Gee, that’s too bad, ’cause where I come from there’s this sort of tradition.”
“What’s that?” he asked suspiciously.
“When a cowboy gets a new truck, it’s not officially his until he makes love to his woman in it. What do you say to that, Friday?”
“Yeehaw,” he replied.
Kansas Troubles Page 31
