Red's Hot Cowboy (13 page)

“You know you can have as many as you want long as you bring them back in two weeks,” the librarian finally said.

“The library back in my hometown was so little we only got one book at a time. How can you let them go for two whole weeks?” Lucy began stacking them on the counter.

“I bet you and I’ll be seeing a lot of each other.” The librarian smiled.

“Yes ma’am, we will.” Lucy had seven on the counter when her time was up.

“You are one eclectic reader,” the librarian said.

“I’m not sure if that’s good or bad. But I do love books,” Lucy said.

She had checked out Nora Roberts’s Three Sisters Island trilogy along with
Vows
by LaVyrle Spencer,
Gone With the Wind
by Margaret Mitchell, and two thick mystery books by James Lee Burke.

“You really must like to read,” Pearl said.

“Always have. I can’t wait to get home. I think I’ll start with
Gone With the Wind.
I always wanted to read that but someone stole it from our library.”

It was a few minutes past five when they got back to the motel. The parking lot was empty except for Wil’s truck. Pearl helped Lucy carry in her supplies and then drove down to her apartment. Wil drove up at the same time she pulled into the parking spot, grabbed two bags with one hand and a case of Coke with the other, and headed for the lobby door.

“Show me where you want this stuff,” he said.

He was still wearing chaps and spurs, and his Western cut jean jacket hugged his broad chest. He smelled like cold outdoors, horses, and sweat. There was a shadow of scruff on his face. Pearl had thought he was hot as hell before but this Wil was absolutely scorchin’. She bit back the moan before it escaped her lips. She wanted to kick him down the hall and into her bed.

She led the way into her apartment. “You are handy as a pocket on a shirt and show up at just the right time.”

When he unloaded the bags onto the table his arm brushed against hers and the tingles got hotter’n a tin roof in the middle of a Texas summer. The reaction in his jeans let him know that it had been a while since the last woman and that the redhead had soft, kissable lips.

Wil kicked at imaginary dirt, making his spurs jingle. “Ah shucks, ma’am, I ain’t that handy. Today was just good timin’. I’ll get busy airing up the tires. Should be about done by the time you get your groceries put away.”

“Which one are you going to trust me to drive?” Pearl asked quickly.

She didn’t want him to leave but couldn’t think of a single reason to keep him in her apartment. She wouldn’t mind if he’d just stand over there in the corner in that cowboy getup and she could kiss him every time she passed by. That would be enough for a couple of hours and then they’d talk about something more… like seeing just how to get those chaps and spurs off and strewing clothes down the hallway.

She put up a palm between them.
Whoa! Stop it right now!

“What?” he asked with a smile.

She blushed and lowered her eyes from his lips to the area in front of his jeans the chaps didn’t cover. She quickly turned around and busied herself putting Cokes in the refrigerator. The cold fridge air did manage to cool the crimson blush sneaking into her cheeks after that glance at his zipper.

“Nothing. I’ll put away the food and be out there in a few minutes.”

“Sure thing, and it don’t make me no never mind which one you drive back to the ranch.” The spurs jingled as he left.

She wished he would have swiped all those groceries off the table and made wild, passionate love to her right there in front of Delilah, Aunt Pearlita’s memory, and the Almighty, Himself. When she looked over the fridge door he was gone. She slowly put away the rest of the food, stuck her two books on the bedside table, and went outside to find him airing up the third tire.

For the first time she appreciated the chill of the north wind sweeping down from Oklahoma, across the Red River, and into Henrietta, Texas. It cooled her blistering thoughts and red-hot desires.

Wil loved to break horses; he loved the challenge and the wild ride. But when he saw her walking toward him, he would gladly take a ribbing from the boys waiting at the round pen if he could hold Pearl in his arms and kiss her as much as he wanted.

He looked up from a bent position and said hoarsely, “Didn’t take you as long as I figured it would.”

She decided that there wasn’t a man alive wearing a custom tailored Italian three-piece suit as hot as a cowboy bent over a truck tire in chaps, boots, and spurs. Good guy; bad boy. It didn’t matter as long as he looked like Wil Marshall, smelled like Wil Marshall, and set her body on fire like Wil did.

“Don’t take long to put up groceries to feed one person for a whole week.” Her tone was two notches deeper than usual and sounded gravelly in her ears.

“So Lucy isn’t sharing all her meals with you?”

“I’ve got a feeling Lucy needs some time all alone. She checked out seven books and plans to have them read in two weeks. I get the impression that she’s going to enjoy the evenings in her little motel room all alone with no one to answer to.”

“How long has she been puttin’ up with that stuff?” Wil finished that tire and went on to the next one.

“She told me the short story but I reckon it would be more than ten years. It took five to save the money to get out of it.”

He pulled the long hose stretched from compressor in the bed of the old truck to the last flat tire. “Then I guess she will need some time. One more to go.”

She leaned against the front fender of the older truck and watched, her hormones humming and her ears buzzing while she tried in vain to rope in her wild imagination. She shook her head to erase the sexy visions and the hum. She had a motel to run, Lucy to help heal, and two books to read. She damn sure didn’t have time for whacked out hormones no matter what pretty tune they were humming or how bad she wanted another one of those steamy kisses. God Almighty, she needed to get back in the dating world. She needed to date lots of men, a different one every weekend.

But what if he’s the one? What if Wil Marshall is the very one you have been waiting on all your life, your soul mate?

He tossed the air hose into the back of the truck, flipped a switch to turn off the compressor, and handed the keys to the newer vehicle to her. His thumb lingered on her palm and the steamy heat was still there. “You can take my new truck. This old one has a stick shift and gets cantankerous on second gear. I’ll lead the way since you’ve only been out there one time.”

She hopped inside and started up the truck only to have her ear drums rattled by a CD turned up to the highest volume with Blake Shelton singing “Kiss My Country Ass.” She quickly twisted the knob to decrease the noise and looked across at Wil who shrugged and smiled.

Ten minutes later they were parked in his front yard. Digger came running from behind the house. Wil bent down and rubbed his ears, said a few words to him, and opened the truck door for him to get inside the truck. He bounded up onto the seat, licked Pearl from jawbone to eyebrow, and then sat down like royalty. Wil got in the passenger’s seat beside him and strapped the seat belt across his chest.

She wiped at the dog slobbers and frowned. “Yuck!”

“Look at that, Digger. She don’t take to dog slobbers but I had to eat that pie after she’d licked it. Seems like she’s more’n a little bit hoity-toity.”

“I’m not hoity-toity!” she said quickly.

Wil grinned. It didn’t take much to fire her up and he loved the way her eyes flashed when she was angry. “Yeah, you are. You wouldn’t go to dinner with me because I’m nothing but a plain old farmer.”

She turned the truck around and started back toward town. “You’re picking a fight, Wil Marshall, and you know it. I don’t give a damn if you are a plain old farmer or richer than Bill Gates. That doesn’t have jack shit to do with anything. And why does your name have only one
l
in it instead of two?”

“You are changing the subject but I’ll tell you. My name is Wilson, not William, so it had only got one
l
in it. My full name is Jesse Wilson Marshall. Wilson after Momma’s maiden name. Jesse after my father. What’s the rest of your name?”

“You’ll laugh,” she said.

He crossed his chest and held up two fingers. “I promise I won’t.”

“Double dog promise?”

“You got it. Is it all that bad?”

“It is ten times that bad. I was supposed to be a boy so they didn’t have a name picked out at all for a girl child. The day they left the hospital they were still in shock that I didn’t come with the right plumbing to make me John Tyson Richland Junior. So Momma said she wanted to name me for her favorite aunt, my grandmother’s sister in Georgia. That gave Daddy the idea of naming me for his favorite aunt, which was Aunt Pearlita. He’d spent some time over in these parts when he was growing up around her and my great-grandmother.”

“I figured that’s where they got the Pearl.”

She reached Highway 82 and turned east toward the motel. “Mother’s favorite aunt was Minnie and she didn’t have a middle name. So they named me Minnie Pearl Richland.”

He bit the inside of his lip and swallowed hard three times before he got the laughter under control.

She stuck out her lower lip in an exaggerated fake pout. “You are laughing!”

“Am not,” he said from between clenched teeth.

“Yes, you are. I can see it in your face. Whatever you are thinking is written all over your face, Wil Marshall. You can’t hide a thing.”

He bristled. “I can too. I’m part Seminole Indian. I’ve got a great poker face.”

“Yeah, right. Your eyes are laughing so hard they are about to pop right out of your head. And I don’t care if you are full-blood Apache. You do not have a poker face. I could whip your cowboy ass in poker any day of the week and twice on Sunday.”

“You can’t see my eyes.”

“Yes, I can. You looked at me to see if I was lying and you were laughing.”

He couldn’t contain it another second. It exploded and bounced around the cab of the truck like a marble in a glass jar. He tried to stop by clamping his mouth shut but even that didn’t work. A vision of the late Minnie Pearl from
Hee Haw
appeared in his mind, only it was Pearl Richland wearing a big straw hat with the price tags hanging from it.

Pearl was grinning when she nosed the truck into the parking spot in front of the motel lobby. “I’m so glad you got such a kick out of that story. Now do you want my real full name or will that one do to entertain you?”

The laughter stopped as suddenly as it started. He drew his dark brows down into a single line and narrowed his eyes. “You lied to me?”

“You broke your promise and laughed at me. I lied. Not much difference.”

“What if I hadn’t laughed?”

She smiled sweetly. “Then I would have let you think my name was Minnie Pearl for the rest of your life.”

“What is your name really?”

“Would you believe Olive Oil Pearl?”

“Come on, Pearl. Tell me the truth. Is it worse than Minnie Pearl?”

She turned to look out the side window so he couldn’t see her expression. “Okay, the truth? But you cannot laugh. Just remember that they had to come up with a name or they couldn’t take me home. It’s Oyster Pearl.”

“Now you are being stupid. No one would name their child Oyster.”

She pulled the handle to open the door. “Well, that’s my name. Good night, Wil. Don’t bother coming to the Longhorn Inn if your electricity goes out because there won’t be a room for you even if I have twenty rooms empty.”

“Okay, okay. I’m sorry I said that about your name. I won’t ever bring it up again.”

She stepped out of the truck and slammed the door. He crawled out on his side, told Digger to sit still, and walked to the lobby door with her. She unlocked it and went inside, her ribs aching from pent up laughter. She had to ’fess up so she could laugh or else she was going to explode.

“Wil, my full name is Katy Pearl. Katy Minerva is Momma’s favorite aunt. I always thought it would’ve been a hoot if they’d shortened Minerva to Minnie like they did Pearlita to Pearl. I was just joshing you.”

“Okay, Katy Pearl, which is a lovely name, by the way. You have a sense of humor. I like that in a woman.”

He followed her almost to the counter before he took two steps to her one and was suddenly in front of her, his arms around her and his lips parted as they came closer and closer. He opened his eyes slightly and saw the tip of her tongue wet her lips and zeroed in for the kiss. He hugged her tightly and made love to her mouth until she was breathless. When he broke the kiss, he buried his face in her hair and inhaled. Cold, sweat, and a faint floral scent mixed together to take his breath away.

“Good night, Red.”

She was speechless. He should’ve been angry at her for lying to him or embarrassed at believing the lie. She should’ve been madder than hell at him calling her Red again but nothing came to mind so she watched him go with one of those backward waves.