The Cowboy's Mail Order Bride (7 page)

He took a long gulp of his milk then put it on the coffee table in front of him. It did little to ease the dryness in his mouth or to still his racing pulse.

“So evidently you are not married now because you’ve agreed to stay on and work for Nana for a month. Have you ever been married?”

“Have you?”

“I asked first,” he answered.

“It doesn’t matter who asked first. I think it’s only reasonable that you answer my questions too. What’s good for the goose is good for the gander. You either answer mine or I don’t answer yours,” she said.

“Nana says that about the goose and gander all the time.”

“So did Gramps. He said just because I was a girl didn’t mean I didn’t have to learn the ranchin’ business from the ground up.”

“Okay, fair enough. No, I have not been married.”

“Neither have I. Why?”

“That’s two questions,” he said.

“You asked two, so I get two.”

She turned her head slowly and her blue eyes locked with his. He wanted to kiss her, to reach out and trace her jawline with his finger; he wanted to kiss her passionately. Even if she slapped the shit out of him, he had to kiss her.

***

His eyes looked different without the glasses, softer and dreamier. Thick brown lashes rested on his cheekbones when he blinked. She reached up and touched the slight cleft in his chin.

“Are you involved with anyone?” she whispered.

He ran his left hand from her shoulder down to her hand, where he laced his fingers in hers. “Are you involved with someone?”

She barely shook her head, afraid that he’d take it as a sign to move his hand.

She wanted him to kiss her.

“I should go back up to my room,” she whispered.

He nodded and tilted her chin up with his right fist. “Me too.”

Neither of them made a motion to stand.

“But I don’t want to.” He grinned.

Oh, hell
, she thought as she unlaced her hand and scooted six inches closer to him. She leaned in, wrapped her arms around his neck, and brushed a kiss across his lips.

He pulled her tightly against his bare chest, only the thin cotton of her nightshirt separating skin from skin. He deepened the second kiss until it felt like white-hot fire, silk sheets, and chocolate all mixed together. It held promises of something so wild and wonderful that it made her whole body quiver.

It ended, but it wasn’t over. He brushed the hair away from her neck and moved downward to that erotic zone right below the ear and strung scorching hot kisses from there to the hollow of her neck and back to her lips.

He wrapped his arms around her waist, and she shifted positions until she was sitting in his lap. Her hand toyed with his hair at the nape of his neck, and the other pressed against his bulging chest muscle.

His hand slipped beneath her shirt and massaged her back on his way to her shoulders, then gently eased around to cup her breast. She was going to explode any minute right there on the sofa. Tomorrow morning Clarice would find the remnants of a flannel shirt and a few buttons. The rest of Emily would be scattered around the room in fine ashes.

His thumb grazed her jawbone, and his forefinger tilted her chin up for a better position, each kiss getting deeper and deeper, his tongue doing a mating dance with hers and heat building into a raging fire. He left her lips long enough to kiss both eyelids and move his hand from her breast to the top of her bikini underpants.

She arched against him, ready for his touch, wanting it. His fingertips slipped beneath the elastic. She pressed closer to him and opened up for easier access. God, she’d never been so damn hot in her whole life.

And then the microwave dinged.

She jumped like she’d been shot, and with the speed of lightning, both of his hands were gone.

“Shit!” he mumbled.

Dotty’s voice floated from kitchen to den. “You couldn’t sleep either? Did you check out your laptop?”

Emily and Greg scooted to opposite ends of the sofa.

“Too much excitement. We’re gettin’ old when a domino game keeps us up. I got out my notebook and copied it all off in a new one so I can give it to Rose. She can’t do her business without the alphabet chart,” Clarice said.

Greg whispered, “They’re in the kitchen. I’ll go keep them busy until you get back to your room.”

Emily looked down at the telltale bulge in his pants and shook her head. “It would be kind of tough to cover that up. I’ll wait right here for them.”

“Thank you,” he whispered.

She heard his bedroom door shut barely seconds before Dotty and Clarice joined her in the living room. She wanted so badly to ask them what they were doing with notebooks full of Internet lingo, but that would be prying into stuff that was none of her business. Still she would just love to see the pictures of the old men that they were flirting with online. Were any of them as handsome as her grandfather had been?

“I figured Greg would be in here when I saw the light. Sometimes he has trouble getting to sleep,” Clarice said.

“I couldn’t sleep so I heated up some milk and put some chocolate in it.” She pointed to the table. “That is probably his glass right there. Guess he left it when he went back to bed.”

“He likes chocolate milk when he has trouble sleeping. I used to drink a little shot of Jack Daniel’s before Clarice put me on the wagon. Now I have a cup of jasmine tea,” Dotty said.

“That good for insomnia?” Emily asked.

Clarice sat down on the sofa beside Emily. “No, but Dotty thinks it is. Greg should have at least put his glass in the dishwasher.”

“Guess none of us could sleep. I checked my emails and my Facebook site. Are y’all on Facebook? I’d love to have you as friends if you are,” Emily said.

“Gracious, no! We wouldn’t have the faintest idea about all that shit,” Dotty said.

“We come from the age of writing letters and notes, darlin’,” Clarice said. “Guess you noticed all the sticky notes in the kitchen. We get a big kick out of those. Prissy brought some when we first had trouble with the computer and she stuck them around the monitor. They kind of remind us of our younger days back before all this computer rage, so we started using them a lot.”

“Well, I’ll see you in the morning, then.” She stood up and headed for the kitchen. It wasn’t until she started up the stairs that she could breathe right again. She and Greg had damn sure lucked out that night. In five more minutes they would have been having sex right there on the sofa or on the living room floor. They’d have been so wound up in each other’s naked arms that they wouldn’t have even heard that microwave dinging. Thank God for microwaves! Greg would have thought she was one loose-legged hussy if she’d fallen into sex with him after only twenty-four hours.

Greg stepped out of his bedroom door and wrapped his arms around her, kissed her on the forehead, and whispered, “Your room or mine?”

Shaking her head was the hardest thing she’d ever done. “Neither. We were both saved by the microwave. When fate steps in and stops something, there is a reason.”

“Damn microwave,” he grumbled.

“Good night, Greg.” She tiptoed and kissed him on the cheek.

She shut her bedroom door and flopped backward on the bed. She beat the pillow into submission, but something still wasn’t right. Finally, she figured out that it was his picture, so she turned it around and crawled between the sheets. But sleep was still a long time coming that night.

Lightning zipped through the sky in long streaks, and thunder rattled behind every streak. Clarice rode in the front seat and Dotty sat right behind Emily, umbrellas right beside their oversized purses.

“Never know what it will do in February. It can put down a late snowstorm, hustle up a damn tornado, or turn off warm enough to work in shirt sleeves,” Dotty said. “If it starts to rain cats and dogs and baby elephants, I promise I’ll share my umbrella with you.”

“Thank you, Dotty.” Emily smiled into the rearview mirror.

“We’re going after Rose. Thank God she don’t drive anymore. Last time she got in her truck, she backed right out into the side of a police car. Totaled that car and ripped the tailgate off her damn truck,” Dotty said.

“It was her fifth accident, so the insurance company canceled and no one else would insure her,” Clarice said. “It was time she quit driving years ago, but she didn’t have a grandson to take her truck keys away from her like Greg took mine or like Dotty’s boy, Jeremiah, got hers.”

Emily followed directions into Ravenna and pulled into the driveway of a little white frame place with a couple of cats lazing on the steps.

“Toot the horn. Rose primps until the last minute. She’s got a crush on that old guy at Dairy Queen,” Dotty said.

Emily hit the horn and Rose came right out. Emily hopped out like a professional chauffeur and opened the van door for Rose, helped her inside, and buckled her seat belt.

“Now this is real service,” Rose beamed.

“See, I told you. Rose gets all fancied up to go to the beauty shop,” Dotty said.

“I don’t take out the garbage without putting on my makeup. Lord, I’d scare the poor old trash man plumb to death,” Rose said as she took out her compact mirror and checked her lipstick one more time. “I’ve decided I’m having a massage today too, Dotty. I weeded all my flower beds and got them ready to plant in a few weeks before we played dominoes last night, and I’m aching all over.”

“Woman, you got enough money to hire someone to do that for you. You are eighty years old, not twenty. Hire some help. There’s plenty of folks lookin’ for a job around here,” Clarice said.

“I know how old I am, Clarice Adams, and I also know if you don’t use it, it’ll dry up and die, and my arms already look like bat wings, so I’m not going to just sit down and let them go to complete fat,” Rose said.

“Well, shit! I ain’t used my female equipment since my husband died. You think it’s dried up?” Dotty asked.

Rose slapped the air around Dotty’s shoulder. “Don’t talk like that around Emily. You’ll embarrass her. I would have been on the porch waiting, but I got a phone call from Letha who wanted to talk about Prissy… oh, turn right at the T, Emily.”

Emily turned and looked over at Clarice. “Now make the next left and go a quarter mile. You’ll see the arch over the gate. That’s where you turn right again, and Madge will be on the porch. She still drives, but we like to take her with us on Wednesdays so we can all be together.”

“We all became friends back when we were young women,” Rose said.

Emily looked at Dotty in the rearview.

“Friends, hell. They are slave drivers and bossy as hell. My Johnny died five years ago and I had a lot of good old Kentucky bourbon therapy until this bunch of women interfered.”

“We had an intervention,” Rose said seriously.

Clarice pointed at the arch. “Yes, we did. I took charge and made her work for me, threatened to make her go to those meetings down at the Presbyterian church if she ever picked up the bottle again, and she’s doing fine. Madge is waiting on the porch.”

Emily hopped out of the van again and settled Madge into the third spot, beside Rose. They were cramped, but it wasn’t too bad, and Madge swore she was not wiggling into the backseat, because she might miss something they said.

“Now what were y’all talking about?” Madge asked. “I was looking on the farmer’s only dot…” She stopped dead and looked at Clarice.

“You mean that farmer’s game thing on the Internet?” Rose asked too quickly.

Emily’s ears perked right up. Those old girls were covering up something and she’d be willing to bet half her hundred acres that the next word after “dot” would have been “com.”

“Oh, so you’re on Facebook and you like to play the farm game?” Emily asked innocently.

“Not me,” Madge said. “My grandson brought a game for me to plug into my laptop that has to do with farmin’, and I was playin’ with it and…” she floundered.

Clarice butted into the conversation. “We were telling Emily about our Dotty intervention.”

Dotty slapped Clarice’s hand. “Intervention, my ass. You should’ve seen them come marching into my house like judge, jury, and Jesus all in one. They poured out my Jack, yelled at me, packed my clothes, and called Jeremiah to come sell my trailer.”

“Jeremiah sold your trailer?” Emily asked. She’d rather hear more about Prissy and dot com, but the conversation whipped around like the wind in a tornado.

“Yes, that rascal did,” Dotty said.

“You did good with him, and he amounts to something because you raised him right. And he knew exactly what he was doing when he sold that trailer. When’s he coming to Ravenna again? Y’all best call me when he does. I didn’t get to see him last time,” Madge said.

“He’ll be here for the church bazaar. He promised, and he never breaks a promise. I got a feelin’ he’s got a girlfriend. He ain’t just said it, but there’s something in his voice that says he’s happy,” Dotty answered. “That rotten Greg hears from him more than I do. And I was doing just fine with my bourbon until y’all showed up with that damned interferin’ shit you did.”

“I’m not buying that bullshit, Dotty. You were drinkin’ yourself into an early grave,” Rose said.

“I would’ve got to that grave faster if old man Beamus hadn’t died and quit making moonshine. Now that stuff was some powerful shit, and I liked it better than whiskey,” Dotty said.

“Moonshine?” Emily asked.

“Walter Beamus made moonshine back in the woods,” Clarice said. “Oh, Rose, I made you a new little book.” She passed it over the backseat.

Emily’s ears perked right up. “Prissy helping all of you girls?”

“On occasion. We hired her to help us navigate our way around our computers after we figured out that she and Greg wasn’t going to… how do you kids say it? Hook up?” Madge said.

“Oh, so they dated?” Emily asked.

“Hell, no!” Dotty said. “She hates ranch livin’ and he loves it.”

“Emily, if you fell in love with a rancher, would you demand that he leave it and move into town and work in an office?” Dotty asked.

“You don’t change what a person is. If they’re a rancher at heart, they’d be miserable in town,” she said.

Clarice hit the armrest hard enough that the whole van went quiet. “See there, I told y’all. If a girl is from the big city, then we shouldn’t be.” She stopped dead and the van went quiet.

“Were any of y’all big city girls?” Emily asked.

“Not me,” Dotty said. “I come from a place down in a holler that made Ravenna look like a big city. We didn’t even have indoor plumbing. I thought I’d hit the big-time when I married Johnny.”

“Not me, either. I grew up in southern Oklahoma in a little area known as Russett. It’s not even there anymore,” Madge said. “At least it was close enough that I could go visit my folks a few times a year.”

“And you, Rose?” Emily asked.

“Well, Madge and I are cousins. Our mothers were sisters. Huttig, Arkansas, isn’t any bigger than Ravenna, but it was home. My folks are all gone now, so I haven’t been back there in years.”

“What did your mamas think when you said you were marryin’ a man you’d never met?” Emily asked.

Dotty giggled. “Honey, there was thirteen of us. My mama was just glad I was leavin’.”

Rose clucked her tongue like an old hen. “My mama wasn’t too happy about me coming all that distance to visit my cousin, but she took me to the bus and gave me all kinds of advice on the way. She was so mad when I married a man from these parts that she wouldn’t even write me a letter for a whole month. I had to take him home to meet her before I was forgiven. And then be hanged if she didn’t like him better than me.”

“And you, Madge?” Emily asked.

“Mama knew, but she didn’t like it. Girls did things like that more in them days than they do now.”

Madge whispered over the seat toward Emily, “I think Clarice has always been jealous because she didn’t get to be a mail-order bride.”

“I am not! Lester was a good man and we had a wonderful life,” Clarice protested.

Dotty patted her on the shoulder. “Was Marvin a bad boy in his youth?”

“Not that I know of. What about your husbands?” Emily asked.

“Johnny was a bad boy. Hot-tempered. Drank too much. But oh, honey, he could flat-out set the sheets on fire,” Dotty said.

“Turn right at the light and then left at the next corner,” Clarice told Emily. “There it is. The hot pink building beside that house. Shelly turned her garage into a beauty shop when her old business burned down. It used to be on Main Street. Park right out front. Thank goodness it’s not raining yet. And Dotty, don’t be sayin’ things like that in front of Emily.”

Shelly’s Hair Designs was painted in purple lettering on the window sporting a zebra print valance. It hardly looked big enough to offer everything that they wanted done.

“She added on the massage and spa at the back,” Clarice said. “And she’s got three beauticians and two massage ladies. It’s the biggest place in Bonham.”

“And the most expensive,” Rose said.

“Shit, woman! Quit your bitchin’. Abe squeals every time you pinch those pennies,” Dotty said.

“You want to come in and get all beautified with us, Emily?” Clarice asked.

Emily shook her head. “I’ll wait right here. I’ve got a book in my purse.”

“Nonsense! Drive around and get acquainted with the town. I’ve got your cell phone number. When we are done, I’ll call you and we’ll go for ice cream,” Clarice said.

The ladies disappeared into the purple magic and miracles salon. Emily waited until they were all inside before she backed the van out and drove on into Bonham. She located the library east of the town square, which she drove around three times, taking in all the stores surrounding the courthouse. If it had been a pretty sunny day, she would have copped a seat under a shade tree and read her romance novel while she waited, but the way those black clouds were rolling around, she’d probably just get settled and it would start to pour. She made a few turns and wound up in a lot beside the town’s kiddy park.

She turned off the engine and reached inside her purse for the book she’d been reading and grabbed her grandfather’s funeral memorial instead. The picture on the front had been taken the year she came home from college, back when he was still healthy. She wanted everyone to remember him that way, not as the withered-up guy that cancer had robbed of life and strength.

She touched his cheek in the picture and imagined him looking right at her. Tears stung her eyes, but she held them at bay until she opened the brochure.
Born
January
28, 1932 ~ Passed From This Life…
she shut her eyes so she didn’t have to see the date. Hot salty tears broke through the dam and flooded down her cheeks, dripping onto her denim jacket. One landed on her grandfather’s nose and that brought on heart-racking sobs that echoed off the van walls. She gently laid the folder in the passenger’s seat and curled up in a tight ball around the steering wheel, weeping so hard that her chest ached.

Greg startled her when he opened the door to the van, gathered her up in his arms like a bride, and carried her to a nearby picnic table. He sat down on the table, put his feet on the attached bench, and held her without saying a word. She buried her face against his chest, wrapped her arms tightly around his neck, and wept.

Lightning lit up the sky again and again, and thunder cracked through the air louder than shotgun blasts. Dark clouds held the pregnant promise of rain, a rancher’s dream at the first of February. None of it mattered. The memorial said Marvin Cooper was dead, and they never lied.

The wind whipped around to the north, and the temperature dropped ten degrees and then rain came down in a torrent. Greg stood up with her still in his arms and ran to the van where he opened the front door and pushed a button to make the side door slide open. He crawled inside the wide backseat with Emily still cuddled against him.

He hit the button again to close the door against the rain falling in sheets so thick that nothing outside was visible. The skies went as dark as midnight, and the wind rocked the van back and forth. She sighed and dug her fists into her eyes like a child.

“All done?” he asked.

She shook her head and sunk back into his hard chest again. Gramps had been her anchor during storms, both naturally and those that life brought on, and he was gone. He’d never be there to guide her through the bad times that life threw at her, or laugh at her when she covered her ears during a lightning storm.

The next clap of thunder was so intense that she let go of Greg’s jacket and tried to curl up into an even tighter ball. Now she had to face everything, every day alone. She had to make decisions that would affect her entire life… all alone.

“First time you’ve let it loose since he died, isn’t it?” Greg asked.

She hiccupped. “He’s gone, Greg. He’s never coming back.”

“It took me about a week when my grandpa died. Dad said I should be strong because Nana needed me, so I was. And then one day I was in the horse stable and his old work gloves were right there on the tack room table where he’d left them. Still can’t bring myself to go back into the tack room.”

“How long ago was that?” she asked.

“Five years. I shut the door and used another room for a tack room. Louis, the guy who takes care of the stable most of the time, didn’t have any desire to go back into the old one either, so it’s been abandoned.”

“How did he die?” she asked.

“Heart attack. He took off his gloves and dropped seconds later. If it makes you feel any better, I cried longer and harder than you did,” he said.