Love Drunk Cowboy (7 page)

“What the hell are you doing?” She popped both hands on her hips and glared at Rye O’Donnell. “Do you know what time it is?”

He poured a cup of coffee and set it on the kitchen table. Damn, but she was cute in those pajamas with her hair all tousled. She didn’t have a bit of makeup on and yet she still looked gorgeous. He laid a hand on her shoulder and steered her to a chair. “Drink that. It will wake you up.”

A night’s sleep hadn’t taken the jolt of electricity away when he touched her shoulder. The steam rising up off the boiling eggs was cool compared to his hand and yet there was a deep desire to pick her up, carry her to that big recliner in the living room, and hold her until she woke up.

“I don’t want to be awake. I told you I sleep late on Saturday.” She grumbled to cover up the way his mere touch made her knees go all weak and rubbery.

She wanted to be grumpy. She wanted to be mad until the next Saturday when she planned to sleep in, but his smile sure knocked a hole in that idea. That and his red-hot touch on her shoulder didn’t do a damn thing but make her want to grin back at him. She picked up the coffee and sipped but she was not going to dye Easter eggs. If he wanted that gazillion eggs all colored up and pretty then he could dye all day. When she finished her coffee, she was going right back to bed.

“I told you that we dye eggs every year for the Easter egg hunt. I promised Granny Lanier that I would keep up the tradition for her and I’m going to, with or without you,” he said.

The coffee was just like Granny made and ten times better than Starbucks. The second sip woke her up a little more. She shouldn’t finish drinking the whole cup or she’d never go back to sleep, but it was so good she kept sipping. “It’s not even seven o’clock!”

“If you’ll step out on the porch, there’s a beautiful sunrise putting on a show just for you,” Rye said.

More than the aroma of good coffee wafted to Austin. He had shaved recently and the aroma of his shaving lotion blended with the coffee smell and good Lord, was that bacon frying in the electric skillet? A man that dyed Easter eggs, cooked breakfast, and looked like he just walked out of a western movie. It wasn’t fair that he lived in Terral and not Tulsa.

“How do you like your eggs?” he asked.

“In an omelet with tomatoes and mushrooms.”

“Don’t have fresh things in the fridge and the garden won’t be ready for weeks so it’ll have to be with ham and cheese.”

“Why’d you ask if you were going to make them that way?”

“So I’ll know next time. Get that smaller skillet out from under the bar and you can stir the sausage for gravy while I keep the bacon turned.”

“This is my house.”

He pointed at the bar. “Yep, it is. After today you’ll know there are two electric skillets that we use on Easter weekend when we need all the burners on the stove to boil eggs.”

She set her mug on the bar and pulled out the small skillet. “Sausage, ham, cheese, and bacon. I’ll gain ten pounds on breakfast alone.”

“And you’ll work every bit of it off on a watermelon farm. Plug that in and crumble the sausage…”

“I know how to make gravy. I don’t need a lesson.” Her tone had softened and she almost smiled.

His eyes twinkled every time he glanced her way. “Good. The biscuits are already in the oven. Out of a can because my biscuits have to be registered with the police as weapons. Granny never could teach me how to make decent biscuits. If you can make them like hers we’ll go on to the courthouse in Waurika and get married today.”

She gasped.

“Don’t faint. I was teasing. I’m not in the market for a wife even if it is a sore spot with my family.” He said the words but his heart didn’t believe them for one minute. If Austin had turned around and said she would marry him right then he’d have scooped her up in those cute little pajamas and carried her out to this truck before she could change her mind.

Good Lord, what in the hell am I thinking? I’m not ready for marriage. Austin is hot and I’d love to date her, but marriage? I don’t think so.

She cut off a fourth of the roll of pork sausage and put it in the skillet, fished an egg turner from the drawer under the bar, and stomped it into tiny pieces. Her stomach growled as the smell of the sausage blended with the other breakfast aromas in the small kitchen. On weekdays she grabbed a Starbucks on the way to work and called that breakfast. On Saturday she had a late brunch with her mother at the dealership which usually consisted of a bagel with cream cheese and a cappuccino with skim milk and extra vanilla. It had been years since she’d had a big country breakfast, probably the last time she was in Terral.

Traitor,
she thought as she touched her noisy stomach.
One day in this place and you already want to dive right into country eating.

“After we eat breakfast, that batch of eggs should be ready to put in a sink full of cold water and we’ll start the next batch to boiling.”

“I told you…”

“I know and, darlin’, if you don’t get the Easter fever the first time you dip an egg into dye, you can put on them fancy shoes and go on about your business. Granny and I did this every year. Several years ago the folks decided to use plastic eggs and fill them with candy, but not Granny. She said that bunnies didn’t lay eggs one day a year to be replaced by store-bought plastic eggs and as long as she was alive there would be real eggs. She carried enough clout in town that no one argued with her, but no one would help either so I got recruited. From day one I loved it. I’m doing it this year in memory of her.”

“Okay, okay, I’ll help. No more guilt trips.”

Rye’s face lit up when he looked down at her in the close quarters. He raised the fork he was using to turn the bacon and said, “Be it known that this country boy will never buy a plastic egg. He vows to uphold the tradition of the real Easter egg until his dying day.”

“We’ve got a lawyer coming around in a few hours. I’ll get him to work up an affidavit and notarize your signature on that profound statement.”

A sensitive man with his looks. Just what you’ve been searching for, young lady.

Austin could swear her grandmother’s voice had entered her head or else the old girl had come back to life and was standing behind her. She looked over her shoulder but the only person there was Rye in his tight fitting jeans, a three button yellow knit shirt with a slightly wrinkled collar, and dark hair that needed a trim two weeks before. He really was what she’d been searching for, but why did she have to find him in Terral, Oklahoma, right on the edge of hell?

I’ve told you all about him for years. Didn’t you listen to a blessed thing I said? He’s a good, honest man.
Verline’s voice argued with common sense inside Austin’s head.

Austin had said, “We have a lawyer coming.” That little word “we” put another big smile on Rye’s face as he turned the bacon to be sure it was cooked just right. He stole long sideways glances at Austin as she stirred the gravy, amazed at how comfortable she was in the kitchen. He’d found a woman who set his heart to doing double time but she was a fancy lady, not someone who’d be at home at a rodeo or riding beside him on a tractor. Now what was he supposed to do and where did he start?

She looks like she’s pretty well at home in the kitchen and that’s a plus.
He could hear Gemma’s arguments.
Come on, Rye. If you don’t get married soon our parents are going to be too damned old to even enjoy their grandchildren.

Hey,
he argued silently with his youngest sister,
it’s not written on stone that I have to marry before the rest of you do. Don’t wait on me.

Irish rules, remember. Daddy said we got to do it in the right order and I’m getting tired of waiting on you. We’re all going to be gray haired and walking with canes by the time you find someone that’ll meet the long list of ridiculous qualifications you’ve got. I wish you’d never gotten that damned tattoo.

He was gazing out the kitchen window without seeing a thing.

When he finally blinked, Austin was doing the same thing.

He touched her arm lightly, letting his fingers linger just a beat longer than he should have. “What are you thinking about?”

She looked around quickly to find him staring into her eyes. “What are you thinking about? You were staring out the window all the way to eternity. If you burn my bacon after getting me up before daylight, I’m going to be one upset woman.”

“I’m not burning the bacon. I was arguing with my sister. She gets into my mind and fights with me.”

“About bacon?”

“No, about Easter eggs.”

Austin looked away, poured milk into the skillet, and kept stirring. “I don’t believe you. What were you arguing about?”

He avoided the question. “Do you ever argue with someone who’s not really there?”

“Sure, I was just doing so with Granny but I’m not telling you about what.”

Rye grinned. “Then I don’t have to tell you what Gemma and I were fighting about.”

Austin drew down her brows in a frown. “Gemma?”

“She’s my youngest sister and even more Irish than the rest of us. Black Irish, Daddy says. We are all dark-haired. Some of us have green eyes like Daddy and some brown like Momma.”

“Is Gemma an Irish or Indian name?”

“Irish to the letter. Gemma is number five. Three boys. Me, Raylen, and Dewar. Then Colleen and Gemma makes number five. She’s named for Daddy’s grandmother.” Rye drained the bacon on a paper towel before transferring it to a plate and making an eight-egg omelet in the bacon drippings.

“Did you invite all the hired hands in for breakfast?”

“Nope, I have a healthy appetite. Granny did too, and since you are her kin, I kind of figured you wouldn’t eat like a bird. Don’t worry. Anything we have left over old Rascal will be glad to clean up for us.” It felt right to be in the kitchen with Austin. It even felt right to be arguing with her.

“Is that old cat still alive? He must be fifteen years old?”

“Sixteen. He just gets fatter and lazier every year. He’ll be on the front porch by the time we finish breakfast. Long about noon he’ll move to the shade tree in the backyard and then to the shed after supper.”

“Has he turned gray?”

“Around the nose but he’s so big and sassy the other tomcats leave him alone.” Rye turned the omelet over, loaded it with grated cheese and chopped ham, and flipped it in half.

Austin poured the gravy into a bowl and took two plates from the cabinet. In a few minutes she was sitting at a table that would have put any waffle house to shame. She split open a biscuit and covered it with gravy, cut a fourth of the omelet and slid it over into her plate, and picked up three pieces of bacon with her fingers.

“Crispy.”

“You like it floppy?” he asked.

“Oh, no. Granny and I like our bacon crispy, our steaks medium rare, and onions in our fried potatoes.”

“Women after my heart.” He smiled. “What time is the lawyer coming around?”

“Pearlita said at ten o’clock. How many eggs are in that refrigerator?”

“A helluva lot. We boil four dozen at a time then we color them all pretty and put them back in the crates. Tomorrow we’ll hide them all around the community center. One will be the prize egg. That means whoever brings it to me gets a certificate to go down to Cavender’s Western Wear in Nocona and pick out a brand new pair of cowboy boots.”

“How do you know which is the prize egg?”

“We do different things. Sometimes we just write prize on the side with one of the wax pencils that comes with the dying kit and sometimes when Granny was real spicy we did it in glitter. I got both up there on the fridge so you can decide this year since it’s your first time.”

“What on earth made you move to Terral? I thought people moved out of here, not to here.”

“Cheap land. My uncle had this property out in west Texas and when he died it willed it to me. Never had any kids. I didn’t want to live out there so I sold it and started looking for a place close to Ringgold. My folks live seven miles across the river. Oklahoma taxes are lower than Texas and the land was less expensive. So I got four sections of land, two miles long, two miles wide across the road from here. My folks are seven miles away, two miles south of what’s left of Ringgold, so I can see them any time I want. What keeps you in the big city? You’ve got a farm free and clear and Felix and the guys are here all legal and ready to work.”

“I like my job. I like what I do and I’m in line for a big promotion. I’ll clear the table if you’ll start those eggs to cooling and the next batch to boiling. We might even get most of them done before the lawyer gets here if we work at it together.”

She scraped the final two tablespoons of omelet onto a paper plate and added the rest of the gravy on the other side and carried it to the front porch. Sure enough there was Rascal, the big old black tomcat, waiting patiently for scraps. He rubbed against her leg and purred as loud as a threshing machine until she set the plate down and then he hovered over it, daring even a sparrow to look crossways at his breakfast.

She sat down in the rocking chair and watched the sun going from half an orange to a full-fledged giant Nerf ball as it left the far horizon and took its place in the cloudless sky. Granny used to talk about the Easter snap, a cold spell that usually hit every year on Easter weekend but she must’ve taken it with her on her journey down the river because the day promised to be beautiful with no hint of bad weather.

The peace that surrounded her was like a warm cloak on a blustery cold winter night. She drew her knees up and wrapped her arms around them. Instead of horns honking as people rushed around the city, crickets and tree frogs serenaded her. A dog barked over across the road at a passing truck. The driver stuck his hand out the open window and waved at her. Somewhere down near the river she heard a coyote howl and a boat motor firing up.

It wouldn’t be difficult to sit in that rocker day after day and let life pass by in peaceful hours.
In a month I’d be bored out of my mind. But right now after only one day I feel more relaxed than I have in years.