I Love This Bar (22 page)

   "Did you buy a donkey?"

   "Did that howling coyote make you think of the donkey? I bought two donkeys. One is in the pasture right behind the house. Bought them from Billy Bob this morning. He opened the gate between this property and his and turned them loose for me. I went out and herded the spotted one up to the pasture so Uncle Emmett can talk to it tomorrow. It's the gentlest of the two. The other one is wild and mean."

   She leaned her head back and shut her eyes, wishing he'd keep talking. She didn't care about what or who as long as she could listen to the deep timbre of his voice.

   When she opened her eyes he was inches from her with his hand outstretched. "Dance with me?"

   "Are you serious?"

   "I am," he said.

   He led her out into the yard, drew her next to his body, and began a slow waltz.

   She pushed back and said, "Wait a minute."

   "What?"

   She sat down on the bottom porch step, jerked off her boots and socks, and tossed them toward the porch. "I want to feel the cool grass under my feet."

   The angles of his face softened with a smile. She walked back into his embrace and he moved her around the yard through two slow country songs.

   A faster song started and keeping her hands in his they did something between a polka and a square dance. She threw back her head and laughed when he spun her around. The stars were a blur and her heart raced.

   The next song was another slow ballad and she could feel his heart beat against her cheek when she laid it on his chest. Midway through the song he tilted her chin back with his fist and brushed a soft sensual kiss across her lips.

   She rolled up on her tiptoes, tangled her fingers in his damp hair, and pulled his face toward hers in a long, passionate, lingering series of kisses, during the course of which he picked her up off the ground like a bride and carried her toward the house. She knew the magic word was stop, but she couldn't say it any more that night than she could have when he kissed her the first time.

   She reached out and opened the screen door. He didn't bump her head or her toes one time as he took the steps slowly. And his lips never left hers. Her eyes stayed shut until he took her into the bathroom instead of the bedroom.

   "What are we doing in here?" she asked.

   "Shhh. Tonight I'm making love to you, not having sex with you. Be still and enjoy," he whispered seductively.

   He eased her down on a vanity stool and ever so slowly pulled her T-shirt out of her jeans. As the shirt went up so did the steamy hot kisses, each one making her gasp.

   "Let's just go to bed," she said.

   He stopped to taste the smoky skin at the nape of her neck when he tossed the T-shirt to one side. "You deserve more. Have I told you that you are the sexiest woman alive?"

   "Not with words. I did see something like that in your eyes," she said.

   "You are, Daisy. I can't get you out of my mind for more than five minutes at a time." He turned on the water in the old claw-foot tub. His eyes never left hers as he fiddled with the knobs to get the water temperature exactly right. He poured in bath oil that bubbled and she watched it, mesmerized as he sat down in front of her on the floor and started at her toes, kissing each one before moving on to the tender arch of her foot. Each touch was like pouring gasoline on the burning desire deep inside her body. Then he stood her up and unbuttoned and unzipped her jeans, tugging them down and pitching them into the corner with her shirt and socks.

   "Please," she begged. "Jarod, I want you so bad. We can take a long bath together afterwards."

   "We are making love, darlin'. Not havin' sex."

   By the time he'd unhooked her bra and added her bikini underwear to the pile in the corner she believed in human combustion.

   He picked her naked body up, turned around, and very gently put her into the warm water. He filled a Mason jar just like she used at the Honky Tonk and slowly poured it through her long dark hair. When he applied shampoo and began working the lather into her scalp, the only thing on her mind was that she'd never had love made to her before. He took his time and poured dozens of jars of water through her hair to get all the soap out, his lips kissing every part of her neck, face, and eyelids as he did.

   "Enough. Take me to bed or get in this tub with me. I can't take anymore. Your kisses on my body are pure blazes," she whispered.

   He picked up bar of sweet smelling soap and lathered up his hands. "We are just beginning, honey. Washcloths and sponges are cheaters," he said as he began to give her a bath with his soapy hands.

   Her skin sizzled every place his hands slipped and slid and she vowed she would get even with him one day. When he finished he wrapped a towel around her hair and one around her body and carried her into the bedroom where he set her on a straight back chair. When he'd rubbed her hair almost dry he picked up the hair brush. Stringing kisses down her back with every brush stroke, he loved every shiver that his touch caused.

   "Stretch out on the bed on your stomach," he whispered as he picked up a bottle of lotion from the bedside table.

   "After?"

   "Before and after, too, if you want. But definitely before. Daisy, let me love you my way tonight. Let me give you all a woman like you deserves."

   She stretched out on her stomach and he started at her neck, massaging and kissing alternately from shoulders to toes. By the time he rolled her over to her back her eyes were glistening and she was amazed that she hadn't burned a hole in the bedsheets.

   "I think I've died and gone to heaven," she said weakly.

   He removed his clothing in a blur. He stretched out on top of her and she nipped him on the neck. He was right. Making love was different than having sex, she thought when she shut her eyes and let go of every thought except fulfilling every gnawing, demanding need.

   She called his name twice before he said hers and collapsed on top of her. He could have stayed there all night with his dark chest hair tickling her nose and she wouldn't have uttered a single complaint. The glow in the room was far greater than the one she'd experienced in the back of the truck.

   
So there are even degrees of afterglow. Is there one
bigger than this?

   He rolled to one side, keeping her in his arms and burying his face in her hair, inhaling the sweet smell of the shampoo.

   She didn't open her eyes for fear that it would all be a dream. She vowed that she'd never settle for sex when she could have love like she'd just experienced. There was a difference and if she never had it again, at least she'd experienced it once in a lifetime.

   She fell asleep in his arms.

Daisy awoke, sat straight up in a strange bed, and jerked her head with such force that her neck popped when someone threw a leg over hers.

   "Jarod?" she whispered. Then she remembered dancing with him and being carried up the stairs. A glimmering flush covered her as the rest of the night flooded over her like the moonlight slipping through the lace curtains. She carefully untangled his leg, curled up with her face against his chest, and went right back to sleep. When she awoke the next time, sunrays filtered through sheer curtains into the room and she was alone.

   It wasn't the first time she and Jarod had had sex, so it wasn't the first morning after, but it was still awkward. She fell back on the bed with a groan. The morning after making love was even more uncomfortable than the morning after sex. She'd have to face Emmett and Jarod that morning together!

   She couldn't gather up her things and sneak out. Emmett would be devastated if she and Jarod suddenly "divorced." She took five minutes longer than normal to brush her hair. With slow steps she made her way to the table where Emmett sipped coffee and read the morning paper alone.

   She peeked around the archway from the dining room into the kitchen to find it empty and went on inside to pour a cup of coffee. She carried it back to the dining room table and sat down.

   The house was a perfect square and two stories up. The small foyer had a staircase up to the top floor. An archway to the left led into a dining room with a smaller arch into the kitchen. To the right was another arch that went into the living room and behind that was a den and office combination. Emmett spent most of his time at the dining room table or else in the living room.

   "Good mornin'," she said.

   He looked up over the top of his paper, grunted something that made no sense, and went back to reading.

   She sipped her coffee and shut her eyes to the endless knickknacks sitting everywhere. If collecting clutter was genetic then Mavis and Chigger definitely shared a limb of the same family tree. Looking back at the way Mavis took charge of everything and nothing riled her, Daisy wondered if she'd secretly given birth to Chigger in her middle-aged years and given her away for adoption.

   Emmett snapped his paper shut, folded it, and laid it aside. "It's about time you come crawlin' out of bed this mornin'. Sun's been up an hour already. I told you runnin' that Honky Tonk was going to be too much for you once you were a married woman. Runnin' a joint ain't no job for a married woman. Kids will be comin' along before long. Don't look at me like that. I heard them bedsprings yesterday afternoon and you don't want your kids goin' to school and havin' to say their momma is a barkeep."

   "Why not?" She glanced upstairs. Maybe Jarod was in the bathroom.

   "You know why not and he's not here this mornin' so stop huntin' him. He's got a cow havin' trouble calvin'. You ought to be out there with him and you would be if you hadn't slept so late because you were off at that beer joint last night. He's a damn good rancher but you are a vet."

   She glanced at the clock on the wall behind Emmett's head. It was only seven thirty. She didn't think that should be a sin beyond forgiveness since she normally didn't open her eyes until noon or after.

   She glared at Emmett. "Don't you lecture me. I'm twenty-eight years old. I've been making my own way in this world since I was a kid and I don't need your sass. If I want to take my kids to the Honky Tonk with me and put them in the back room while I serve beer and drinks to the customers, that's my business."

   Emmett tucked his hands inside the bibbed part of his overalls. "You'll do no such thing with my grandchildren. I won't rest up there with Mavis if you take my blood kin to a honky tonk when they ain't nothing but babies. What's your business right now is to quit. I want you here full time before I die. I want to know there's a good woman behind Jarod, takin' care of him."

   "They aren't your grandchildren, Emmett. They'd be your great-great nieces and or nephews. And Jarod's a big boy. He could run this ranch with one hand tied behind his back and cross-eyed, all by his lonesome little self. And I can help run this ranch and take care of my beer joint too." Her blue eyes flashed.

   "You'll see I'm right one of these days, Daisy McElroy, and when you do I'll laugh at you," Emmett said.

   
Daisy McElroy!
The name sounded strange in her ears.

   "And I won't care if you do," she countered.

   He laughed until his breath caught in his chest. "I knowed you were the woman for Jarod from the first time he come home from that beer joint. It reminded me of the first time I saw Mavis. Why, that next day he wouldn't hardly even argue with me. I shoulda brought him down here a long time ago. Let's go talk to the boys at Morgan Mill again this mornin'. You can visit with…" he stumbled on the name.

   "Tillman?"

   He shook his head.

   "Bob?"

   Another shake.

   "Gordon?"

   "Hell no. Not the guys. That woman. I remember when she was born and when she got married and how many kids she's got but I can't remember her name. I even know her momma and daddy and her grandparents," he said.

   "Nita is her name. I'm not hungry. I'll just grab a doughnut at the café." Taking him to the café would buy a little more time before she had to face Jarod.

   "That's right. Nita. I'll put on my boots and you go bring the truck around to the front door," he ordered.

   She went out into the garage and picked out the right keys from the hooks inside the door, fired up his truck, and drove it around to the front yard. She waited a minute but he didn't come out so she left the truck running and went into the house to hear Jarod's frantic voice. Thinking he was talking to her she rushed into the living room to find Emmett sitting in his favorite old worn leather recliner with one boot on and the other on his lap. His face was the color of cold ashes and he was mumbling incoherently.

   "Yes, ma'am. Ten minutes." Jarod kept his eyes on Emmett.

"Day…" Emmett's eyes went to Daisy.

   She sat down beside and him and held his hand. "I'm right here."

   "Make him really marry you," his whisper was raspy.

   "You old goat!" she said.

   Emmett squeezed her hand with all the energy he had left.

   "Promise?" he said before he shut his eyes. He had a smile on his face and Daisy's hand in his as he crossed the threshold to reach out for Mavis.

   Tears streamed down Daisy's cheeks as she laid her face on his knee and wept. "He's gone."

   The paramedics arrived with whining sirens ten minutes later and found them, Daisy on one side and Jarod on the other, their hands entwined together over his right one that still held Daisy's.