Texas Rose Forever (Texas Rose Ranch #1) (14 page)

This was safe . . . this was easy. When it was just sex, she knew the rules.

Sex she understood, that she could handle—it was the waking up beside someone every day that made life complicated. She wasn’t ready for complicated.

CHAPTER 14

After lunch, Cinco found it hard to leave CanDee. He just wanted to hang out with her and see what wacky thing would come out of her mouth next. But work was work. It had to be done. This afternoon, they were cutting and baling hay. He’d almost asked her to come help, but she had her own work and she’d probably distract the cowboys. She’d sure as hell distract his brothers, who’d also showed up to help.

He glanced over at Rowdy. His younger brother crossed the field and walked toward him. For the love of God, Rowdy’s jeans were pressed with a crease down each leg sharp enough to slice a tomato.

“I went by the cottage last night to apologize to CanDee for interrupting, but she wasn’t there. I went by again this morning, but she still wasn’t there.” Rowdy grinned. “Tell her that I said I’m sorry.”

Cinco sniffed the air. “Are you wearing cologne . . . to cut hay?”

“I wear cologne every day. Being well groomed is the mark of a gentleman.” He straightened his cuff links.

“You wore cuff links to cut hay?” Cinco was tired of beating around the bush. “Are you gay? Mom thinks so, but I’ve got my money on serial killer. You don’t have someone chained to the wall in your basement waiting for you to lower the bucket with the lotion . . . do you?”

“Don’t be ridiculous. I don’t have a basement. And, I’m not gay. What makes you think I am?” He didn’t look mad, only curious.

“We know that you’re not really going to a wine festival the first week of September every year. Mom thinks you’re meeting up with your gay lover but, I think you’re hunting for your next victim.” Cinco held his hands out palms up. “Don’t get me wrong, we love you no matter what, but if you’d just tell me where you’ve buried the bodies, I’m sure their loved ones would like some closure.”

Rowdy looked horrified for a moment and then he wiped his face clean. “I’m not gay or a serial killer, although I did eat a bowl of Frosted Flakes this morning. Where I go for one week a year is none of your business.” He looked anywhere but at Cinco. “Does everyone have an opinion about where I spend that week?”

“It’s gone way beyond opinions, we have pool going. The pot’s up to five grand. The twins think you’re having an affair with a married woman who can only get away one week a year. T-Bone thinks you’re a spy, Lefty thinks you’re a cat burglar, and most of the ranch hands think you’re a contract killer.” Cinco doubted that Rowdy would tell him or anyone where he went. Clearly he was very tight lipped about it. He wasn’t sensing shame, just secrecy. “Do you have community service or something?”

“No. I’m not a spy, contract killer, gay, or a cat burglar, and I don’t have a secret family. Where I go is my business.” Rowdy folded his arms. “Are you sleeping with CanDee?”

“None of your business.”

“Now you know how I feel.” Rowdy sighed like the weight of the world was on his shoulders. “You can tell everyone that I’m not doing anything illegal and that they need to mind their own business.”

“Is there a woman involved?” Cinco just wanted to make sure that his pain-in-the-ass brother wasn’t going to get hurt.

“Yes and it’s complicated so don’t ask.”

“Mom’s going to be so disappointed. You know how she secretly wants one of us to be gay.” He clapped a hand on his brother’s shoulder. “You were her best shot.”

“Don’t make me kick your ass again.” Rowdy cocked his head to the left.

“Like that would ever happen. Besides, I’d hate for you to mess up those sissy jeans. How long did it take you to iron them into submission?” He glanced at the jeans.

“There’s this place called a dry cleaners that washes and irons your clothes. Maybe if you’d buy your clothes from somewhere other than Walmart, you’d have heard of it.” Rowdy wiggled his hips. “Stop staring at my butt, I know it’s fabulous, but it’s embarrassing.”

“Boy, stop shaking your booty around all these men, you’re going to get them excited.” Lefty yelled from behind them.

Cinco turned around to find Lefty walking toward them.

“They can look, but they can’t touch.” Rowdy waggled an index finger at Lefty. “Have you tarred and feathered CanDee yet?”

“That little hellcat is on my list.” Anger flashed in Lefty’s eye. “You know I’m partial to gingers, but this one’s a pain in my ass.”

“You hate redheads.” Cinco wasn’t about to tell him that the stolen
golf cart was parked nicely in his barn. “Your third ex-wife was a redhead.”

“Yep, Fancy was a ginger, but that’s not why I hate her.” Lefty shifted to the right and let loose a big wad of brown tobacco spit. “She took off in my 1978 Cadillac Eldorado with my favorite set of longhorns on the front. Your granddaddy give me them horns. They was huge.”

He shook his head and mourned anew the loss of the steer horns. “I ain’t never seen another set that big.”

As if to pour salt in Lefty’s open wound, off in the distance, CanDee drove the golf cart through the edge of the field, her coppery hair blowing like a flag in the wind.

Lefty’s eye latched onto CanDee like he was judging the distance and length of time it would take to catch her. His top lip snarled. “I’ll get her . . . you mark my words.”

“Why didn’t you just let her take the golf cart?” Rowdy shaded his eyes as he watched CanDee dart across the landscape.

“She ain’t taken the test. Rules is rules.” Lefty let out another dirty, brown stream of tobacco juice. “Besides, she remindes me of my fourth ex-wife, Lulu. I hate Lulu.”

“Was she the opera singer or the Vegas showgirl?” Cinco had a hard time keeping up with Lefty’s ex-wives because the number of them varied by the day. Sometimes the older man had five and sometimes it was closer to ten. Since he’d known Lefty forever and never remembered him being married, either the wives didn’t exist or he’d married them all before coming to work for the Texas Rose. Since he’d been here for well over fifty years, Cinco’s money was on fiction.

“Showgirl. Son, I ain’t never married no opera singer. Their voices is too loud. A man can’t have no peace if he’s with a woman with a loud voice.” Lefty’s tone suggested that every man should know that.

“What did Lulu do to piss you off?” Cinco knew it was a bad idea to bring up the ex-wives because Lefty would be in a pissy mood the
rest of the day, but it took his mind off of CanDee.

“She wrecked my ’71 Ford F-250 custom sport. That truck had the best
air conditioning. One dial to turn it on or off, not like today where every
thing’s got to have some fancy microchip dual-zone crap.” He glanced heav
enward like he was sending up a prayer to his old truck. “I miss Gladys.”

“I thought her name was Lulu.” Rowdy folded his arms across his chest.

“The truck, son, the truck. Keep up. Her name was Gladys and she was my girl. Her clutch was a little sluggish, but I never held that against her.” His eye went all misty like he might actually cry.

“Maybe if you’d have treated your wives with half as much affection as your vehicles, some of them would have stayed around.” Rowdy grinned as he stepped back, no doubt getting out of the way of whatever retribution Lefty had in mind. Lefty didn’t take constructive criticism or any criticism at all. He was more of a my-way-and-don’t-think-of-there-being-a-highway kind of guy.

“Because I love your momma and daddy, I’m going to forget that you said that.” Lefty gave Rowdy the snake eye as he let loose another stream of tobacco spit. “But you’re on my list. No golf cart for a month.”

“Now, that’s just plain mean.” Rowdy’s nostrils flared. “And here I was thinking that I’d let you drive my new truck.”

Lefty’s eye turned huge. “Your Chevy 3500 with the comfort package finally come in?”

“Yesterday. The dealership is delivering it this afternoon.” Rowdy sweetened the pot. “Electronic fold-in mirrors, towing package, power running boards, and air-conditioned seats. It can tow a house without a struggle while pumping out music on the crazy good sound system.”

“You know you’re my favorite out of all you boys. I’m always saying that. Just ask anyone.” Lefty nodded.

“I thought I was your favorite.” Worth stepped up behind Lefty. “Now my feelings are hurt.”

“Who hurt your tender little feelings now?” Dallas walked up to join the party.

“Lefty says that Rowdy’s his favorite.” He turned to his twin.

“Now that’s a lie. Everyone knows that I’m his favorite.” Dallas pulled a pair of worn leather gloves out of the back pocket of his overalls and worked his giant hands into the them.

“Are those my gloves?” Worth’s gaze zeroed in on Dallas. “Wait a minute. Are those my overalls?”

“What? Mom says that I’m a grown-ass man now so I need to do my own laundry. She won’t do it and she won’t let Mary do it anymore. Since I don’t have any clean clothes, I had to do something.” Dallas stepped a little funny and pretended to pull his underwear out of his butt crack. “I don’t like your tighty-whities. They crunch everything together. I don’t know how you stand it.”

“You’re wearing my underwear? I’m locking my room from now on.” Worth’s fist reared back for the nice solid blow to the chin, but Rowdy caught his hand.

“Y’all can kill each other later—right now we need to get this hay in.” Rowdy held Worth’s hand until he was sure the urge to kill his twin had passed.

“Where’s T-Bone?” Lefty scanned the horizon.

“Back at school. He left this morning. Classes start soon.” Cinco was proud of his baby brother. “I still can’t believe we’re about to have a PhD in the family.”

“That kid’s smarter than all of us put together.” Lefty nodded. “He got all the book smarts.”

Worth leaned into Rowdy and sniffed. “Are you wearing cologne?”

“What is the big deal?” Rowdy looked around. “I always wear cologne.”

Dallas looked him up and down. “A man only wears cologne if he wants to get laid.”

Everyone took a step back from Rowdy.

“
’Cause I’m the only one out here who ain’t related to you, I feel like I should just tell you that I ain’t into dudes.” Lefty blew Rowdy a kiss. “Although it has been a while, so maybe I need to keep my options open.”

Lefty walked over to a patch of mud made by a small hole in the irrigation pipe, scooped up an handful of the mud, walked back over to Rowdy, and smeared it down the left leg of his pressed jeans.

“What the hell?” Rowdy looked down in shock.

“I can’t stand to look at them spotless sissy pants one minute longer.” Lefty nodded to himself. “If I were you, I’d hop up in the cab of that work truck before I take some good, honest mud to that clean white shirt.”

Rowdy hightailed it to the front of the truck. “I’m surrounded by philistines.”

“Don’t go around calling people weird Bible names. That don’t make no sense.” Lefty called after him. “Call me an asshole or son of
a
bitch, but leave the Bible out of it. You can’t go around throwing out
Bible curse names. It’s disrespectful.” He punctuated that last sentence with a big glob of tobacco spit.

“It looks like we’re stuck stacking.” Dallas’s lip curled. “I hate stacking.”

“Why can’t we get a real hay baler instead of this old piece of shit?” Worth shook his head. “Large round bales of hay would be so much easier to distribute than these tiny-assed rectangular ones. We’d only need to put out one of those instead of five of these.”

Lefty’s one eye glared at Worth. “Did you just called my sweet Betsy here”—he patted the hay baler—“an old piece of shit?” He whispered the last part like he didn’t want the machine to hear it.

“Yes.” Worth wasn’t backing down and Cinco didn’t blame him. His brother had borrowed his underwear and those crappy little rectangular bales were a pain in the ass—there was just so much one man could take.

“Son, I’ll have you know that Betsy here has been a trusted member of this family since your granddaddy was in charge. You need to treat her with some respect.” Lefty climbed up into the metal seat. “We don’t need no stupid, turd-looking hay bales. Rectangular ones have worked for a hundred years and they’ll work for a hundred more.”

He fired up the engine and Betsy purred like a kitten.

Cinco didn’t have the heart to tell the older man that he’d already ordered a brand-new hay baler and was awaiting delivery. He wasn’t looking forward to the day he would have that conversation with Lefty, but it was coming.

Lefty put Betsy in gear and eased her down the field in a straight line. The machine scooped up the cut hay, bundled it into a rectangle, wrapped wire around it, and spit it out the back like a chicken laying an egg. Rowdy followed Betsy slowly in the pickup while Cinco, Dallas, and Worth tossed the bales in the back of the truck. It was hot, messy work, but it was part of ranching.

Four hours later, Cinco was bone tired as he pulled up to his house and parked next to the barn. All he wanted was to see CanDee and drink an ice-cold beer. He liked having her in his house. She made coming home a lot more appealing.