by Anne Jolin
Their house was little. Couldn’t have been more than three bedrooms if I had to guess. And old. Porch needed a good sandin’, and the exterior should have been painted a decade ago. Was nice, though. Set back deep on the property. I was bettin’ if the grass been cut and new gravel been laid, it might even be cute.
Evenin’ faded into night, gettin’ almost too dark to work when I heard her.
“I brought you some iced tea,” she yelled up.
I leaned over the edge of the roof to see Ryley holdin’ a pitcher and a stack of red Solo cups.
“Well, aren’t you the sweetest thing,” I teased her, though I meant every word. “I’ll be down just a sec.”
Takin’ off my hat, I pulled the shirt over my head and climbed on down the ladder with my tools. She was waitin’ on me, sittin’ there on the porch, grinnin’ like a loon.
I sat down next to her, tossin’ my hat on the deck while she poured us two glasses.
“How old are you anyhow?” I asked her.
Handin’ me a cup, she smiled. “I’ll be ten this November.”
“Ten, eh?” I swallowed pretty much the entire cup in one go, settin’ it back down on the counter.
“Yes, sir.” She filled my cup up again. “How old are you?”
Laughin’, I watched her watch me. Was like she ain’t ever seen a man before. “Thirty-one.”
“You’re older than Mom.” Ryley wrapped her hands around her cup.
She looked like Rayne, same messy hair and long limbs. They even had the same freckles ‘cross their cheeks.
“Oh ya?” I took another swig of the tea. “How old is she?”
“Twenty-eight.” She pulled her knees up to her chest and rested her chin on them. “She had her birthday before we moved here.”
I nodded, acknowledgin’ her as she spoke.
“You likin’ it here in Willow Bay?” I asked.
Her face lit up like a damn Christmas tree. “Yes! I like hanging out with Mason. He’s my best friend, and Sadie and Nora are fun too. My school is smaller and our house is bigger. I miss Grandma sometimes, though.”
My brows pulled together, keepin’ up with her and fixatin’ on one thing. “Who’s Mason?”
“He’s Sadie and Nora’s kid. He’s two years older than me.”
I nodded. “You spend lotsa time with them?”
“Mmm-hmm. Afterschool and when Mom has to work late.”
Finishin’ off my glass, I placed it on the porch. “She work late often?”
Her head tilted to the side, sizin’ me up. “Yes, she works a lot. Do you want more tea?”
Girl was a dang waterfall she talked so much so quickly.
“I think I’m good, sweetheart.” I winked at her. “Best I be gettin’ home soon.”
“Oh.” Her face dropped.
Tappin’ her once on the nose, I tipped my hat. “I’ll be back tomorrow, little lady. Don’t you worry.”
She jumped up on her two feet and did one of them fist pumps with her right hand.
“Can I ask you a question?” I asked her as I stood.
She nodded.
“Think your momma’d say yes if I asked her to go out to dinner with me?”
Grinnin’, she pulled a folded piece of paper from her pocket and held it out to me. “Mom told me to give you this if you asked me that.”
I chuckled, takin’ it from her little hands and unfoldin’ it.
Inside the note was just one word.
No.
“Sendin’ the little lady to do her dirty work is she?” I winked at Ryley.
She wiped the dust off her shorts. “She likes you.”
“Think so, do yah?”
Instead of answerin’, she picked up the pitcher and walked backward. “Night, Owen.”
“Night, Ryley. Make sure you lock that door on up tight, all right?”
She grinned.
I grabbed my tools off the porch and waited ‘til I heard the deadbolt on the door slide before I climbed into the truck.
Rollin’ over the ignition, I looked up through the windshield seein’ a pair of hazel eyes watchin’ me from behind the curtains.
I flashed my high beams.
Startled, she dropped the curtain and disappeared into the house.
I tucked that note in my glove compartment.
Rayne and Ryley Brookes were a helluva surprise for this man.
THAT COWBOY CAME EVERY DAY that week. Every damn day.
He’d come sometime after we left in the morning, and he’d be there when we got home. Working on that damn roof until the sun went down.
Then, when he was done, he’d come to the door.
“I’m headin’ out,” he’d say, leaning against the doorframe, always sweaty and always somehow better looking than the previous day.
I’d always answer him with a practiced lack of enthusiasm. “Okay.”
“Hey, Ray. Would you go out with me sometime?” He never forgot to ask.
I never forgot to say no. “No. I don’t date cowboys.”
He’d smile. He always smiled, no matter how rude or short I was with him.
“I won’t be holdin’ that against you then,” he’d tease, before hollering into the house. “Night, Ryley.”
“Night, Owen,” she’d answer him from somewhere in our little house.
Tipping his hat, he’d back off the porch. “Sweet dreams, darlin’ and be lockin’ that door.”
Then he’d wait on the edge of the wood until he heard me slide the deadbolt before he’d get in his truck.
We’d developed this odd passive-aggressive routine. Or perhaps I was the only passive-aggressive one out of the three of us.
Ryley liked him. I wondered what they talked about when she went out to sit with him, but I never asked. Somehow their conversations together seemed their own.
The first day, Tuesday, it had been iced tea. The second day, Wednesday, after the movies, she seemed sad to have missed him. Yesterday, Thursday, it had been sandwiches and tea. Today, before leaving for her sleepover with a friend from school, she’d brought him a freezie. I wasn’t sure grown men liked freezies, but Owen didn’t appear to mind.
Ryley seemed to be finding ways to stay out there longer. She was fascinated by him, though how could she not be? She had never spent much time with men in her entire life. We’d come from living with my mother in Peace River to living here in Willow Bay where the people she spent the most time around when she wasn’t at school were Sadie, Nora, Mason, and me. Men, especially a man like Owen, were somewhat of an enigma to her.
“Bye, Owen.” Ryley waved to him as she ran full throttle, pillow in hand, toward Amy’s mother’s van.
He stopped the handsaw he’d been working with and tipped his hat at her. “You have fun, sweetheart.” I watched him wink at her. “Be savin’ some of that candy for me now.”
That was another thing I noticed. Owen had taken to calling her little lady or sweetheart when he was around. Given the way she beamed at him when he did, I could hardly ask him to stop.
I folded my arms over my chest and smiled at Amy’s mom, Sophia, as Ryley hopped into her backseat. “I’ll pick her up at nine tomorrow morning then?” I asked.
“Sounds good.” Sophia leaned out the window, her eyes moving to Owen and then me. She smirked. “You have a good night now, honey. We’re around all day if you want to pick her up later.”
Ignoring her, I leaned into the open door. “Have fun, honey. I love you.”
“Love you too, Mom.” Ryley smiled and buckled herself in.
I closed the door to the van and waved as they pulled out of the driveway.
Now, what?
When I wasn’t working or with Ryley, I was kind of at a loss for what to do with myself. Turning on my heel, I pretended I couldn’t feel him watching me and went inside.
I could watch a movie? I looked at the television. That meant I’d have to set up the cable box and I didn’t really feel like doing that.
&
nbsp; I could read a book? I picked up my Kindle and pushed the power button. No battery.
Hmmm. My eyes wandered to ,the cut off saw in my front yard.
Oh, what the hell?
Grabbing a six-pack from the fridge and the leftover pizza from last night, I stepped out onto the porch. It was a little past seven, the sun would be starting to set soon, and I doubted he’d eaten anything all day. Never once saw a cooler or anything out here.
Knowing Owen couldn’t hear me coming out over the saw, I rested the pizza box on the railing and leaned a hip against one of the pillars, watching him.
He’d taken to wearing a shirt when Ryley was around, which meant he was wearing one now. It was a burnt red, worn at the sleeves, and I wondered how the thread stayed together over the bulge of his arms. That damn hat never left his head unless he was sitting with Ryley, I’d peeked a time or two through the window. And right now, he had a carpenter’s pencil in his mouth.
The sound of the saw stopped, and when the sawdust settled, I found him looking back at me.
“Something a little stronger than tea?” I asked, lifting the six-pack of Miller in the air.
He wiped his hands on his jeans. “Don’t mind if I do.”
Twisting the top off a long neck, I passed it over the railing. “Pizza’s cold,” I told him, gesturing to the box as I opened my own beer.
“Better that way if you ask me,” he said.
I happened to agree, but I didn’t tell him that.
He sat down on the open part of the porch that led down onto the driveway and stretched one of his legs out in front of him. The bottle he lifted to his lips distracted me, his throat moving while he swallowed. Watching him felt like a cliché scene in a beer commercial. We were just missing the girls in Daisy Duke’s to match him.
“You gonna join me or just keep lookin’ at me like you ain’t had water all day, Rayne?” he asked, not turning to look at me as he spoke.
Rolling my eyes, I tossed the pizza box onto the porch beside him and sat down on the other side of it. “How’s the roof coming along?”
He took his cowboy hat off, resting it upside down on the wood and wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. “Old roof was in real bad shape. Might take me a bit longer than expected.”
I groaned out loud by accident, and he laughed.
“Sick of me already?” He titled his head to the side and watched my poor recovery at the news of having him around longer.
“No.”
It wasn’t a lie but it wasn’t the truth either.
Waiting for him to say something, I nervously took a long pull of my beer.
“Ryley will be happy to hear you’ll be around a little longer,” I blurted out.
He leaned back onto his elbows and looked up at me. “Ain’t all that good with silence, eh darlin’?”
I snapped my mouth shut, and a slow grin spread across his face. I was pretty sure he teased me on purpose, but there wasn’t a high likelihood of me calling him on that even if it were true.
The sun began to set, and red covered the sky as I tipped the long neck bottle back. It was beautiful, but as coyly as I could manage, I found my eyes falling back to him, stretched out on my porch.
Owen was settled, like he was at ease with wherever his boots took him, even if it wasn’t home. My life had felt more like a lot of hurry up and wait as opposed to feeling settled. I guess maybe in a way, I envied him that.
He finished his beer, and a little panic bubbled in my chest at the thought that he might leave. This was new to me. I had never understood the almost desperate need for the company of someone you barely knew, until now.
“Another?” I asked, and he nodded.
Twisting the top, I handed him his beer and repeated the motion for myself. He lifted the lid on the pizza box and picked up a slice.
“You best eat somethin’, must have to run around the shower to get wet, you’re so small,” he said, taking a manly sized bite of the pepperoni slice.
“I hate when people say things like that.” I sighed, grabbing a slice.
He frowned as he chewed and I took that as a cue to continue explaining.
“Eat a cheeseburger. Go to McDonalds. Blah, blah, blah… It’s the same old crap.” I rolled my eyes, taking a not-so-ladylike bite that took me a little longer to chew. “I eat all the time. Constantly. This is just”—I motioned to my body with the pizza slice—“how I look. I’ve got the body of a twelve-year-old boy and everyone and their mother seems to think it’s fun to remind me of it.”
Owen swallowed and his face grew tight. “It ain’t mine or anyone else’s business to be tellin’ you how you oughta look, Rayne.” He narrowed his eyes. “Woman’s a woman. Don’t matter she’s thick or thin, long as she’s healthy.”
In a week, I hadn’t seen that side of him. I’d heard about it—the brother who treated his sisters like gold—but I hadn’t seen it before. It was attractive.
“Besides, I like that bony ass of yours.”
And he’s back.
I moved to slap his chest in exasperation, but he grabbed my wrist, pulling me down a few inches from his face.
“I’m crass, darlin’, but it don’t mean it ain’t true. You’re a beautiful woman, and that daughter you’re raisin’ is a helluva lot like her momma. You two don’t let anyone tell you different, ‘specially not a cowboy like me.”
Maybe it was the moonlight or maybe it was the beer or maybe it was the way his words settled into a warm spot in my stomach, but I leaned forward and closed the distance between us.
His lips were softer than I expected but as full as I’d imagined. My hands slid around the back of his neck as he let me control the first few seconds of our kiss. I felt his hand let go of my wrist, settling onto my waist before he lifted me into his lap.
He tasted like beer, though I was sure I did too, and the stubble on his chin dragged against the softness of my skin.
Five seconds, or a lifetime, I wasn’t sure which, but that’s how long it took before he took over our first kiss. Fisting a hand in my loose hair, he pressed my lips harder into his.
Owen Daniels was all man, and he kissed like one too.
Gentle with my soul but demanding of my body, he nipped at my bottom lip, and I shivered.
There were a lot of things women thought about in their late twenties, first kisses weren’t one of them. We’d almost given up on their luster or maybe the belief that first kisses had any magic left in them at all. Well, any woman who said that was true hadn’t kissed Owen Daniels.
My body shook, and I whined when he pulled our lips apart, breathing heavily.
“Best we take it slow.” He grinned. “Don’t wanna go spookin’ yah now that I’m holdin’ yah.”
“Mmm,” I agreed.
He chuckled and swept my hair off my neck. “If I’d have known all it would take was two beers ‘n a slice of cold pizza for you to kiss me, I’d have tried that a helluva lot sooner.”
I closed my eyes and blushed.
“Don’t be hidin’ from me now.” He lifted me off his lap and the sound of him standing up from the porch made my heart stutter.
“Rayne?”
My eyes drew open slowly as I watched him moving.
“Go out with me on Sunday?” he asked, halfway to his truck.
I pressed my fingers to my swollen lips and nodded. “Okay.”
“Is that a yes, darlin’?” He placed that cowboy hat on his head. “Gotta hear you say it.”
Someone, somewhere once said you shouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth, and I guess in a weird, completely backward way, Owen seemed a bit like a gift.
I didn’t want to be the woman who took a good thing for granted.
Opportunities like this didn’t come around very often, and neither did men like Owen.
I rolled my eyes at his cockiness. “Yes, Owen.” I let myself smile. “I’ll go out with you on Sunday.”
He tipped the brim of his hat down. “H
ate to say I told yah so, darlin’.”
I’D BEEN BANGIN’ ON THAT door nearly ten minutes, but nobody came answerin’. Better believe I was a happy man findin’ it locked, though. Seems she was takin’ to listenin’ to me every once in a blue moon.
A light came on somewhere in the house, and I heard soft feet movin’ toward the door. She looked out the window next to the door and scrunched that pretty face up tight.
“It’s five o’clock in the morning, Owen.” Her voice was a sleepy reprimand as she pulled open the door and rested the side of her head on it.
My eyes moved down her body. Nothin’ but a sleep shirt and boxer shorts on. “You always answer the door lookin’ like this?”
She scowled. “I do when it’s five in the morning on a Sunday.”
I didn’t much like the idea of anyone besides me seein’ the way she looked first thing in the mornin’.
“Is everything okay?” Rayne yawned. “Is something wrong with Lady?”
Wrappin’ an arm around her waist, I pulled her to me and backed us both into the house. “Lady’s dandy. I’m here for our date.”
“It’s five am on a Sunday!” she whispered yelled, tilting her chin to look up at me.
Bet your ass I knew damn straight just exactly what day it was. And what time. Been two days since she’d leaned in, givin’ me the best kiss of my life, and I had to get in that truck of mine and drive away just to keep from tossin’ her over my shoulder knowin’ the house was empty that night.
“Gotta be up before the fish, darlin’ if you wanna be catchin’ em.” I wrapped a hand around the side of her neck. “Go on, get dressed now. You promised me a date.”
She huffed, and her mistake was thinkin’ I didn’t find it cute when she did it. “Where am I going to find a babysitter now? Who goes on dates at the butt crack of dawn, anyway?”
“Ain’t be needin’ a babysitter. Ryley’s comin’.” I ran a thumb along the edge of her jaw.
Hell, if this wasn’t me new favourite way of seein’ her. The wild hair even bigger and them sleepy eyes starin’ at me… Ya, I liked it a lot.
Her face softened real quick. “She’s coming with us?”
“’Course she is, darlin’.” Leanin’ down, I kissed her forehead. “Now, go on. Clothes for the both of yah and make ‘em warm. Cold out this mornin’.”
