Life After Wife (21 page)

“Honey mustard,” she said.

The waitress nodded and disappeared back into the kitchen.

“You grew up in this town. Did y’all hang out here all the time?” He looked around at the bulletin board with pictures of that year’s football team and the schedule.

“Not us. We weren’t the popular kids, Elijah. We were just barely considered middle class, and we sure don’t have any football queen tiaras in our memory boxes. We all left the area when we were fifteen. Fancy Lynn’s momma got remarried and they moved to Florida since her stepdad was a career military man and stationed there. My dad got a promotion in the oil company and we moved out to the Texas Panhandle, from there to Cushing, Oklahoma, and then to Alma, Arkansas. I went to school at the university in Fayetteville. Kate’s dad went back to the sugar plantation down in Louisiana.”

“And you kept in touch all those years?” he asked.

The waitress brought their tea and set it on the table, along with their salads and a basket of assorted crackers.

Sophie shoved a mouthful of lettuce and tomatoes in her mouth. She hadn’t realized how hungry she was until she sat down and smelled the aroma of food wafting from the kitchen.

“Oh yeah,” she said when she swallowed and took a sip of tea. “There were letters, then phone calls, then cell phone calls and texting, and then we were back in the area all within a year.”

“I never had lifelong friends like that. I’ve got military buddies that might come see me sometime, and of course my brothers. I’ve always been closer to Hayden and Tanner than the four older boys.”

“Isn’t there one closer to your age?”

Elijah nodded. “Noah is closer to me in age. He’s married. Has four kids. He did not take to ranchin’.”

“A Jones that doesn’t like dirt and cows? You sure your folks didn’t find him in a bar ditch along side of the road and just take him in?” she teased.

He chuckled. “That’s exactly what we told him all those years growing up. He hated to go outside, would rather stay in the house and help Momma or else read a book. It wasn’t a surprise when he told us he was going into the ministry.”

The waitress brought their steaks at the very moment they’d finished their salads, set the plates in front of them, refilled their tea, and disappeared again.

“Very good,” Elijah said after the first bite.

They settled right into their food, the silence between them as comfortable as the hiking at Fort Griffin and the ice cream in Baird. It all felt right and that scared Elijah, who had a sudden case of “what ifs” with every bite.

Sophie hated to get off the bike at the ranch when they returned, but it was time to do chores. Check the cattle, feed the chickens, take care of the dogs and cats, and make sure Hayden and Tanner had gotten moved in. They’d already been working with the other three hired hands during the sale, so everyone was acquainted.

She hung the helmet back on the handlebars and sighed. The day had come to an end too quickly. If Elijah had offered to ride all the way to the Pacific Ocean, she would have been game. Tanner could take on the job of foreman immediately and run the ranch for a couple of weeks. But Elijah was slinging a leg off the bike and plucking his helmet from his head, strands of hair sticking to his forehead.

“Well?” he said.

“What?”

“Still up for another trip next Sunday and some serious fishing?”

“Already looking forward to it. Don’t suppose we could take it to the sale on Friday, could we?”

“No, because if I buy that truck, I’ll need you to drive our ranch truck back home.”

Two words stood out and made those butterflies start two-stepping around in her heart again: “our” and “home.” She liked the way they sounded.

She started for the porch. Her boot sunk into a gopher hole right beside the first step and she fell backward. One minute her feet were firmly on the ground even though her head was in the clouds. The next she was falling in slow motion and then strong arms were holding her tightly.

How she got turned around in his arms, facing him and plastered tight against his chest, she’d never figure out. But she would never forget the soft, dreamy way his eyes looked at her just before he kissed her, or the shocking electricity between them that lingered when he stepped back.

“Guess we’d best go in the house,” he said hoarsely.

Her ringtone set up a howl in her shirt pocket. The old K. T. Oslin song let her know it was either Kate or Fancy. She walked around the end of the house and sat down under a shade tree before she answered it.

“Hello.”

“It’s Kate, and I was about to hang up.”

“We just got back. I was angling for a shade tree before I answered it,” Sophie said.

“Where have you been? I just met a whole raft of Ducaine cousins, and I’m about to set you up with a date for Friday night. Will it be Reed or Luther?”

“Neither.”

“You promised, girl. After the sale, you promised if you didn’t have a date, then me and Fancy get to set you up until you found your life after wife.”

“I had a date, so you don’t have to fix me up.”

Well, it was a date. They’d gone out, had ice cream, which he paid for, went to a museum type thing, which he paid for, and then he paid for dinner, so that was a date by definition. And he’d even kissed her, so it went one step beyond definition.

“With who?”

“With whom,” Sophie corrected her.

“You know exactly what I mean.”

“With Elijah.”

“Bull!”

“We went to Baird on his motorcycle for ice cream,” Sophie went on with the details leaving out the kiss, “and the only bull I saw was a longhorn beauty up in Fort Griffin.”

“I’ll be hanged. Aunt Maud was right.”

“Oh, no she wasn’t! But I did have a date, and you and Fancy are free from your obligation. See you next Sunday.”

“And you’d best bring details and lots of them,” Kate said.

“I only have an hour because we are going fishing.”

“Good grief. A man takes a woman fishing it’s serious as sharing his hymn book in church. I’ll get the wedding plans going.”

“Don’t you dare!” Sophie gasped.

Kate’s laughter rang in her ears a full minute after she hung up.

The week went by like greased lightning. First there was a meeting with the lawyers over the sale, then the bank over the transfer of funds, and then signing enough papers that Sophie wondered if she was buying the whole state of Texas. While they were doing that, Hayden and Kendall were off checking prices on fencing and new barbed wire. When they found the place that would give them the best deal, they tallied up the total and brought the figures to the kitchen table.

Tanner supervised Frankie and Randy while the rest of the hands were busy, and they did chores, plowed and planted three hundred acres of winter wheat, and took care of the mundane everyday business of a ranch.

Come Thursday night all seven of them pulled chairs up around the kitchen table. Hayden reported that he and Kendall had bought and hauled in enough fencing to go around the whole original Double Bar M. Tanner reported what he’d gotten done with the cattle, and set up a date to work all the new calves. Tanner would be responsible for bringing the vaccinations from the feed store in Baird. Randy and Frankie would help with the branding and inoculations.

That left Hayden and Kendall to start replacing fence.

“We’ll put up a mile of new and then take out the old. When you guys get the cattle worked you can help us. It should keep us out of jail for a month,” Hayden said.

Frankie laughed. “At least through the week. Ain’t makin’ no promises about stayin’ out of jail the weekend after payday.”

“You get in jail once, I’ll bail you out and dock your paycheck for the amount,” Elijah said. “Twice and you can hunt for another job.”

“Daddy’s rules.” Hayden smiled.

“That’s right. They worked then and they’ll work now if these boys want to have a job on the Double Bar M,” Elijah said.

Frankie swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down. “Yes, sir.”

“Daddy always had at least five hired hands besides us boys,” Tanner said. “That was rule number one.”

“What was number two?” Randy asked.

“No drinking on the job,” all three brothers said in unison.

Elijah laid a hand on Randy’s shoulder. “You drink on the job, you endanger your life and the partner you are working with. Drunk man can wreck a piece of machinery and kill himself, a dozen cows, and another hand. So no drinking on the job.”

“Any other rules?” Kendall asked.

“Number three: no women in the bunkhouse,” Hayden said.

“Not even for supper?” Kendall fired back.

“Supper is fine. Watchin’ television is fine, but kiss ’em goodnight at the door and send them home. Weekends are yours to do whatever you please. And if you got the energy to chase skirts through the week after workin’ all day, then have at it. You fall asleep on the job, you’ll be lookin’ for another one,” Elijah said.

Suddenly Sophie was very glad she had a man to help her run the ranch. She’d never even thought about rules with the hired hands since Gus took care of all that.

“That all?” Randy asked.

“One more,” Hayden said. “That is if we’re going to run this like Daddy ran the cotton farm.”

Elijah looked at him with a puzzled expression.

Hayden went on. “Saturday, at straight up noon, is payday. Miz Sophie will have your checks written out and ready when you come in to eat that day. You better be in the bunkhouse on Monday morning at six thirty for breakfast. In the case of an emergency, you’ve got Miz Sophie’s cell phone number so call her. And that’s the only reason you’ll not be at the breakfast table, sober and ready for work on Monday morning. Anyone of you got a problem with the rules, or do I need to write them down and nail them to the wall in the bunkhouse?”

Everyone shook their heads.

“Then I expect we’d best get on about our jobs this morning. Soon as we get this fence up, we’ll be doing a heck of a lot of plowing and planting. You’ll be wishin’ you could string barbed wire before we get more than a thousand acres ready for winter wheat.”

Kendall rolled his eyes toward the ceiling. “We’re going to get it all done this winter?”

“Nope, but we’re not going to slow down,” Hayden said. “We’re going to fight mesquite until the Double Bar M is as clean as the cotton farms out in West Texas. Until our pastures are as green as Irish land and our cows are so fat that people beg us to sell to them. I expect you two”—Hayden looked at Elijah and Sophie—“had better go find us some equipment to work this big old patch of countryside. Two
tractors ain’t goin’ to get much done, and we ain’t seen a mule on the place.”

Tanner shook his head. “Mules might be cheaper than tractors, even used ones.”

“Yeah, but the production ain’t as good, and I’d rather be ridin’ in an air-conditioned cab as walkin’ behind a mule all day,” Kendall said.

Frankie slapped him on the shoulder. “How do you know? You ain’t never looked at a mule’s fanny all day long.”

“Bet me? My grandpa had a two-acre garden and a stubborn old mule that took a fit every so often and wouldn’t budge. And guess who got to plow that garden under every spring?” He pointed at his chest.

They were still topping each other’s stories as they filed out the kitchen door and headed off to do their jobs that morning. Elijah looked over at Sophie and raised an eyebrow.

“We’ll get them raised. It’ll just take time,” she teased.

“Well, if we expect to do a decent job with them we better go find them some new toys. Grab the ranch checkbook, and we’ll see if those tractors are as good as the sale bill says they are,” he said.

Sophie wore jeans with a Western-cut shirt hanging out over her belt, boots, and her best straw hat. She picked up her purse, made sure she had half a dozen checks in an envelope stashed in a side pocket and her cell phone charged up, and put on her sunglasses.

“I’m ready,” she said.

“Good ranch woman,” he said.

“And what is that supposed to mean?” she snapped at him.

“It means you are a good ranch woman. You know that we need to get to the sale and you’re ready to go. I appreciate that.”