Getting Lucky (31 page)

   "Why didn't you fall for him like he did you?"

   "I'd already met Matt and he made
me
stutter."

   They settled the kids into bed and an elderly lady from the church had a book ready to read to them. When she said, "Once upon a time," Melinda and Julie headed back toward the party.

   Alvie met them at the door and held his hand out to Julie. "May I have this dance?"

   "I'll be damned," Melinda whispered. "What are you going to do?"

   "Run?" Julie said.

   "Be easy. He's a darlin'."

   Julie took his hand and let him lead her out onto the dance floor.

   "I didn't mean to scare you off. It's just that I let one opportunity slip through my fingers and I vowed I'd never do it again," he said. "You'll be thinking I'm a lunatic. So Miss Julie, would you mind if I called you once in a while just to let you know the offer is real and still stands?"

   "That would be fine, Alvie. I'll look forward to your calls," she said.

   One moment she was dancing with Alvie, the next Griffin had taken his place with a tap on the shoulder.

   "What is going on?" Griffin scowled.

   "Alvie just offered to sign his entire kingdom over to me if I'll go home with him," Julie said.

   "He did what?" A surge of jealousy swept through Griffin like wildfire.

   "I didn't stutter and neither did he," she said.

   "You aren't going." A very long pause. "Are you?"

   "Not right now, but I did say he could call me. I promise not to talk on your time, boss man."

   "You make me so mad sometimes I could spit tacks," he said.

   She looked up and batted her eyelashes at him. "Imagine that."

   "What about Lizzy and Chuck?"

   "Six month split. You get them six months. I get them the other six months."

   "Do I get Annie on alternate six months?"

   "Hell no. Annie has always been mine and will always be mine. Lizzy is Annie's and thus part mine. Annie isn't part yours. We can share Chuck."

   His blue eyes narrowed. "How in the hell do you figure that?"

   "I can figure anyway I want. Alvie is going to give me his kingdom, remember. Besides, Lizzy will whine and fret without Annie."

   The song ended and everyone clapped. The singer went right into Kenny Chesney's "You Had Me from Hello." Griffin could well identify with the singer when he said something about her smile capturing him and her being in his future and about it being over from the start. Looking back he'd been as thunderstruck that first day when he saw Julie in the classroom as Alvie had been with Melinda. The only difference was that Alvie admitted it from the start and didn't know what to do about it; Griffin had been fighting it for months and it could be too late to do anything about it.

   "What are you thinking about? You look like you really could chew up tacks," she said.

   "I'm thinking about the songs. Care to dance another one?"

   "Sure. I'm not a wallflower and I'm sure Alvie will dance if you are too tired," Julie said.

   "You wouldn't do something foolish, would you?" he asked.

   "I don't rush into anything anymore. Not sex or marriage. Both got me in a hell of a lot of trouble," she said.

   "Fair enough," he said.

   Right then if she'd been ready to do something insanely impulsive, he would have dropped down on one knee and proposed in front of a whole barn full of people, his momma, and even God to keep her from going.

   Alvie claimed the next dance, to no one's surprise and yet to Griffin's misery. Griffin stood on the sidelines and wished for the first time in his life that he had the kind of personality that Alvie had cultivated in the past twenty years. One that could sweep in and knock a girl off her feet. One like Graham had had.

   "So, pretty lady, I've been watching you all evening and I think I'm a day late and a dollar short again. I've seen you with Griffin and I see the sparks and—"

   She butted in, "There are no sparks between us. We are just friends. Just because my daughter belongs to his brother it doesn't mean she or I belong on this ranch permanently."

   Alvie smiled, his brown eyes wishing he could believe what his ears heard. But his eyes
had
seen and his heart
had
felt. It wasn't going to work. Griffin had already laid claim to Julie, even if he wasn't wise enough to know it just yet.

   "Tell you what I'm going to do. I'm going to wait for you to call me. I'm a patient man, Miss Julie. Very, very patient. Who is that?" His eyes widened and his mouth dropped as he looked toward the doors.

   Julie turned her head slightly to see a figure silhou etted in the doorway of the barn. A woman stood there as if she didn't know where she was. She wore tight jeans and a denim jacket over a red T-shirt, and had flamboyant red hair cut in a style that feathered back from her face and flowed almost to her waist.

   What in the hell was Sally Donavan doing at the Lucky Clover ranch?

   "Excuse me. That would be my sister." Julie thought she left him on the dance floor but when she reached the door he was right behind her.

   "Sally?" Julie said.

   Sally grabbed her in a fierce hug and whispered, "My God, Julie, you look beautiful, and who is the hunk behind you? I could just cover him in chocolate and have him for a late night snack."

   "What are you doing here?" Julie asked.

   "I quit my job and came to get some courage before I go home and tell Momma. She's going to be furious but I just couldn't do it another day. I couldn't even finish the year, so I quit after the first semester. I
hate
teaching," Sally said.

   Julie kept her arm around Sally's shoulder and ran into a grinning Alvie when she turned around. "We're in the middle of a party. Come, join us. The house is full but you can share my room and stay as long as you like. This would be one of the buyers at the sale, Alvie Marlin, from up near Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Alvie, please meet my sister, Sally."

   "P-p-p-pleased to m-m-meet you, S-s-sally," Alvie stuttered.

   Julie suppressed a giggle.

   "Maybe you'd like to dance with Sally, Alvie?" Julie said.

   He nodded, the grin never leaving his face. He'd seen Julie's beauty when she walked through the barn doors in that red dress, but his heart saw Sally. Alvie was in love for real. Even more than with Melinda. He'd just been thunderstruck with all the force that heaven had to offer.

   "I'm not dressed for a party. I'll just wait in the house," Sally said.

   "Don't be silly. Have you had supper?"

   "I ate hours ago, but you know us Donavans. We're always hungry."

   Julie hugged her again and whispered, "Dance with him. He only stutters when he's truly in love. It's only happened once before and that was twenty years ago. And when you get tired of dancing, have something to eat."

   "Please stay," Alvie said. It came out slow and delib erate but his brown eyes begged.

   "I'd love to," Sally said. "So, Wyoming. I've always had a hankering to see that part of the world. Tell me about it while we dance, Alvie."

   Griffin was at Julie's side the moment Alvie and Sally moved to the dance floor. "Who is that?"

   "My sister. Every time she walks into a room every male's IQ drops fifty points and the stock in Viagra drops at least that much. Her name is Sally and she'll be staying a few days, if that's all right with you?"

   "Sally can stay as long as she likes. Come outside with me for a breath of fresh air. I'm getting claustro phobic with so many people around." Griffin laced his fingers in hers.

   Her first desire was to draw them back and make an excuse that she needed to stay in the barn with her sister, but one look in that direction assured her that Alvie wasn't going to let Sally out of his sight the rest of the evening. Probably not even out of his arms.

   "Why would the stock in Viagra drop?" Griffin asked. Sally was pretty and Graham would have moved in on her like flies to maple syrup, but she wasn't as beautiful as Julie.

   "Because, darlin', no one needs it when Sally is in the room. Everything works fine on the male gender when she smiles. She's two years younger than me. Interested?"

   "Not particularly, but I'm glad she's coming to visit you. It'll be lonely a few days after the party. Kind of like the days after Christmas."

"Alvie stuttered."

   A grin split Griffin's face and the dimple in his chin deepened. "For real?"

   "He did. I think he was thunderstruck. Funny thing is, I'm not so sure she wasn't thunderstruck, too," Julie said.

   "Well, I'll be damned." Griffin's didn't care if Sally moved right into the ranch house and stayed forever, if she kept Alvie away from Julie.

   "Is it going well?" Julie asked.

   "What? Oh, you mean the party. Very, very well. The ranch made enough money on the sale to tide us over until next year without going to the bank. That's one thing Daddy and Mother preached to me and Graham when they gave us the run of the ranch: don't borrow. I haven't had to yet and the sale this year is the best I've ever had."

   "That's wonderful. You going to miss your family when they leave tomorrow? When do they come back for a visit?"

   "Not so often. They've got their own businesses to run, too. Lizzy and I usually fly down for Thanksgiving. Stay two days. Christmas we go for a couple of days. Melinda brings her boys so we're all together then. At Easter they all come here for the weekend. And then it's just random visits, whenever we can plan it on the spur of the moment. This year we didn't go for Thanksgiving and we're not going for Christmas. The thing with Chuck… well, I'm not supposed to take him that far without permission and besides, I thought he'd be more comfortable in a smaller setting," he said.

   "My parents have this little apartment above their garage. Annie and I lived in it her whole life until we moved here. Mother kept her while I taught. Summers were wonderful because I had her to myself. But my folks were always next door if I needed them. I saw my mother every day," Julie said.

   "Moving wasn't so easy, was it?" he asked.

   "Hardest thing I ever did, but the wisest," she said.

   He cocked his head to one side. "Wisest?"

   "It was time for me and Annie to make our own lives and give my parents back theirs. Even with all the catas trophes, I can still say it was wise. Annie is happy."

   He made lazy circles on the top of her hand with his thumb. "And you?"

   The sensation drove her crazy but she wasn't about to let him know. "The jury is still out. Even if it comes in not guilty of happiness, I'll still have a measure of it every time I look at Annie."

   His fist went to her chin. He tilted it up and looked deeply into her eyes before leaning forward. The kiss warmed up the cold air around them to the boiling point.

   When they broke away, she leaned into his chest wanting more.

   He threw an arm around her shoulder and said, "Take a walk with me."

   She let him lead her wherever he would.

   Griffin paced his steps to hers. Walking across grass wasn't easy in high heels.

   "What was that all about?" she asked.

   "We can share a kiss. We don't have to break it down by degrees and figure out each little thing every time I kiss you, do we? Sure takes the fun out of it," he grumbled.

   "Fun is something I'm almost as careful with as I am sex, marriage, and happiness," she said.

   He led her into the hay barn where the kittens were kept. They came running from all corners when they heard voices, meowing and rubbing around Julie and Griffin's ankles.

   "Looks like we'd better go to the loft. Can you climb in those things?" He looked at her feet.

   "I can do anything you can do," she said.

   He scrambled up the vertical ladder into the loft and she followed him, proving that a woman could indeed do anything a man could and accomplish it wearing high heels and a party gown. When she reached the top she found him sitting on a bale of hay beside the open loft doors, staring out across the land. The moon lit up the scattered trees and cattle. The house was a bulk with yellow lights flowing from windows over to the north. Music drifted from the west on the cold north wind. She drew her shawl tightly around her shoulders and shivered.

   As she started to sit down beside him, her heel caught in a loose board. He reached out and grabbed her just before she tumbled out the window. He pulled back wards and the momentum of her weight carried them both to the floor, her on top of him when they landed.

   He gasped for air and she rolled off his chest to lie beside him. Both sucked in great amounts of air trying to refill their deflated lungs. If he hadn't grabbed her hand, she could have broken her neck. She grabbed her racing heart and was glad she was lying flat on her back or she would have fainted.

   Griffin rolled to his side and brushed a strand of hay from her hair. "Are you all right? Arms? Legs? Nothing broken?"

   "I think so," she whispered. Nothing hurt except her pride. "You?"

   "I'm fine."

   He ran the back of his hand down her jaw line and leaned in for a kiss. She closed her eyes. Like two souls starved for love they hung on until neither of them could breathe. They broke away but his lips went to her ear and then that erotic soft spot under her ear that no one had ever found before. One thumb made circles as light as butterfly wings on the tender skin between her eye and hairline while his fingers caressed her forehead. The other arm went around her, touching the bare skin on her back, firing up her hormones until she melted in spite of the cold weather. It felt like the man had six hands and every one of them was touching her. She didn't want him to stop and yet knew he should. She should tell him that was enough, but she didn't want to. She wanted it all, up to and including mind-numbing sex.