Texas Rose Forever (Texas Rose Ranch #1) (19 page)

CHAPTER 19

Four hours later, CanDee grabbed her purse and headed out to her golf cart. Since she had both sets of keys, she no longer needed to hide it in the barn. It was neatly parallel parked under a tree in the front yard. As soon as she closed the front door of the house, she knew there was a problem.

“Son of a bitch.” She stared at the golf cart, which was up on blocks and missing four tires. “Lefty, I give you points for trying, but you’ve met your match, old man. This means war.”

Like hell she was going to walk over a mile to her car. She glanced around and her gaze landed on a perfectly good alternative. On the side of the barn, there seemed to be some sort of farming machine hooked up to the oldest tractor she’d ever seen. She was pretty sure that Teddy Roosevelt had ridden that very tractor on his charge up San Juan Hill.

At the back of the tractor, she climbed up onto the metal seat, which seemed to be suspended in air. Based on the amount of metal and the design, the tractor was old, but the bright green and yellow paint looked showroom ready. It was a John Deere Model “D,” according to writing painted on the side. There were lots of levers but no key. Since it didn’t have a key, how was she supposed to turn it on? Not to be deterred, she pulled out her smartphone and googled
starting and driving a John Deere Model “D.”
Five videos came up. God bless YouTube.

After watching a video, she hopped down from the seat, walked around to the front, opened the compression caps on either side of the engine, leaned over and pushed the throttle lever a tiny bit forward, and then walked around to the flywheel and cranked it around until the engine shushed to life. She could actually see the gears turning and hear the motor running. It sounded like a Harley with a head cold. After closing the compression caps, she climbed back into the seat, eased off the brake, and gently pushed the throttle forward. She bounced along at a whopping two miles an hour, but at least she wasn’t walking. Carefully, she gave it more throttle. What the tractor lacked in springs to cushion the ride, it made up for in style. This bright and shiny piece of American ingenuity should have been pulling a float in the Founder’s Day parade or roped off in a museum. She felt like waving to the imaginary masses of people not lining the path she was taking to the cottage, but she didn’t. Waving to imaginary people was probably a bad idea.

She made it to the cottage in record-ish time. True, it would have been easier and faster to walk, but she wouldn’t have gotten to ride on a parade-worthy piece of farm equipment. She parked the tractor and whatever it was pulling between two large oak trees, then jumped down onto the grass.

“Just what in the holy hell do you think you’re doing to my poor Betsy?” Lefty’s eye was squinty and mean.

“Her name is Betsy?” She looked at the tractor. “She’s really more of a Bertha or maybe Edna.”

She hadn’t thought it was possible for his eye to turn meaner, but it had. “Her name’s Betsy and no one rides her but me.”

“Apparently not. And Betsy really isn’t a stout enough name for her.” She patted the flywheel. “She sure is pretty.”

CanDee walked around him to Connie, her Corolla. Because the driver-side door no longer locked—which was good because the only key had broken off in the ignition—she opened the door and climbed in.

Lefty followed her to her car and pointed an index finger at her. “You stay away from Betsy—”

“Put the tires back on my golf cart or Betsy and I are going to become best friends. I’m thinking of painting
Edna
on both sides of her engine just so everyone knows her real name.” CanDee slammed the door and hand-cranked the window down. “I’m running into town. Need anything?”

Just because they hated each other didn’t mean they couldn’t be friends.

His top lip snarled. “Some WD-40 and a bag of Peanut M&M’s.”

“Okay, I’ll be back later.” It was her turn to point at him. “Wheels back or the tractor gets it.”

She rolled up the window and backed up enough to turn around. Lefty reminded her a lot of her grandmother’s ex-fiancé. CanDee had thought he was going to have a heart attack when Grammie used one of his fancy screwdrivers to plant flowers in her front yard, and then there was the time she’d used a hammer to tenderize meat. Now that CanDee thought about it, that’s what caused the breakup. After the meat incident, he’d packed up his tools and moved out. Since Milford was kind of an ass, he wasn’t hard to get over. It looked like Grammie’s picker was broken too.

Since poor Connie was tired of having to drive over these bumpy dirt roads, she was particularly finicky today. On a good day, she did zero to sixty in seven and a half hours, but today wasn’t a good day.

Four hours later, CanDee pulled up to Cinco’s house with a trunk full of groceries. The golf cart was still up on blocks. As she stepped out of the car, she shook her head. Lefty didn’t take directions very well. After she unloaded everything, she was going to pay him a visit.

“What do we have here?”

She turned around. It was Rowdy.

“Nice timing. I could use a helper.” She placed two canvas bags full of groceries in each of his hands.

“I see that you and Lefty haven’t resolved your differences.” He nodded to the golf cart.

“He’ll come around. Wait and see.” She picked up the remaining three bags and closed the trunk. “I brought him Peanut M&M’s and some WD-40. If he wants them, he has to return my tires.”

“I wouldn’t hold your breath. Although, he does love Peanut M&M’s . . . especially the yellow ones. He says they taste better.” Rowdy opened the front door and let her go in first.

Information noted. She’d remove the yellow ones before handing over the bag.

“Your mother did a great job on manners.” She walked in and waited for him to shut the door.

“My mother might be small, but she’s mighty.” He grinned. “Plus, being a doctor, she can kill us fifty different ways and make it look like an accident. Not that she’s threatened it, but it’s sort of implied.”

They headed to the kitchen. She set her bags on the island and he set his on the counter by the sink.

He reached into one of the bags and pulled out a box of saltines. “So, are you in love with my brother or what?”

She nearly dropped her purse. “What? No . . . that’s . . . not . . . we’re . . . what?”

“I’m going to take that as a yes.” He ducked into the pantry and put the saltines away.

“I am . . .” She couldn’t get the
not
out and finally decided on, “It’s too soon to tell.”

“He’s falling hard for you. Please don’t break his heart. Naomi was an evil bitch and she nearly destroyed him. I may want to kill him from time to time, but no one else gets to hurt him.” He reached into the bag and pulled out two cartons of eggs, opened the fridge, and slid them in.

“I understand. I don’t want to hurt him and would never do it intentionally.” She’d end up leaving him and that would devastate both of them.

“I guess that’s the best I can hope for.” He pulled out two whole cut-up chickens. “Why did you buy these? And come to think of it, the eggs?”

“I don’t know.” She shrugged. “I guess I was hungry for chicken and I thought we . . . um, Cinco might like some scrambled eggs for breakfast.”

She sure as hell hadn’t meant to say
we
.

“No, I get the whole food part, but we have our own chickens who produce eggs and great meat. Bobby Don’s in charge of meat processing. I’m surprised Cinco hasn’t given you the ranch tour.” His eyes narrowed. “Too busy doing other things?”

She grinned. “You have no idea.”

“I like you with him. Cinco actually talks now and laughs. I thought that was gone until you waltzed into his life.” He pointed to the chicken. “How about fried chicken for lunch?”

She pulled a plastic sack full of russet potatoes out of her bag. “I didn’t see a Kentucky Fried Chicken anywhere around here. That’s where my fried chicken comes from. I hope you weren’t expecting homemade.”

She headed to the pantry to put the potatoes away.

“I happen to make excellent fried chicken. I have a secret recipe and if you’re nice to me, I’ll even share it with you as long as you don’t tell Cinco. What he doesn’t know won’t hurt him.” He pointed to the bag of potatoes in her hand. “Why don’t you put some of those on to boil while I get the chicken in some buttermilk.”

“Aren’t you worried about messing up your fancy Armani suit?” She’d never seen a man in a suit do anything but sit at a desk. “Why are you wearing a suit?” It wasn’t like he was a stockbroker or a lawyer.

“It’s a workday. I always wear a suit.” He slid off the suit jacket, carefully folded it, and laid it across the back of a kitchen chair.

“You are very high maintenance. Anyone ever told you that?” She liked him in what she supposed was an older-sister sort of way.

“More than one woman has mentioned it. Hey, I emailed your friend Justus. I love the name of her business—Justus Flor-All. That’s funny.” He unhooked his cuff links and rolled up his sleeves. She’d never met a man who actually wore cuff links. “I sent her some pictures and she sent me back some drawings. She’s very talented. Usually, I don’t hire people without meeting them first, but she’s pretty amazing.”

“I know. In addition to being a fantastic landscape designer, she’s also a pretty incredible human being.” She’d spent many a night on Justus’s sofa after Phillip. If Justus had known how bad things were, she would have insisted that CanDee move in, but Justus’s one-bedroom was already crowded between her and her five-year-old son.

“She’ll be here in a little over five weeks. I can’t thank you enough. Mom’s going to love it.” He pulled a large, flat bowl out of the cabinet next to the fridge and then opened the fridge and pulled out a carton of buttermilk.

“How do you know where everything is?” Maybe he had some kitchen intuition? She’d never been able to intuit much, especially in the kitchen.

“I used to live here. After Cinco and I graduated from Texas A&M and moved back, we took over this place.” He peeled back the plastic from the cut-up chicken and dumped the pieces in the flat bowl.

She shook her head trying to picture it. “I can’t quite see the pink Victorian as a frat-daddy bachelor pad. I bet y’all were very popular with the ladies.” She pulled a five-pound bag of flour out of one of the canvas bags and headed to the pantry.

“Yeah, well, we tried. Didn’t always work, but . . .” He shrugged. “You win some and you lose some.”

“Where do you live now?” After putting the flour on the shelf, she walked out to unload more groceries.

“I built a house at the old mill. I started with the old stone mill and added to it. You should come by. I’m about two miles north.” He pointed to the back door like she would know which direction that was. Silly man, everyone knew north was up, south was down, east was right and left was west. It was the way of the world.

“I’d love to see it.” She pulled out two cartons of ripe red strawberries and went to the fridge. Cinco had told her how much he liked strawberries.

“You’d love to see what?” Cinco filled the doorframe leading into the kitchen from the hall. “Well, isn’t this cozy?”

His tone was controlled.

“My house. I was telling her about my house.” Rowdy washed his
hands and wiped them on the towel hanging from the peg next to the sink.

“
It’s weird . . . the house. He took a lovely old stone building and added
a lot of glass and angles. Now it looks like some modern art museum.” Cinco watched her.

Why was he acting this way? He was tense and his movements were deliberate. He was upset about something.

Oh. His ex-wife had hit on his brothers. Seen through his eyes, this little domestic scene must have brought back some bad memories.

She walked over to him and kissed him loudly on the mouth. She pulled back and slipped her arm around him. She could feel his muscles relaxing under her hand.

“Rowdy is making us his famous fried chicken.” She reached down and squeezed Cinco’s butt. He removed her hand, brought it to his lips, and kissed her palm. She smiled up at him. “I’m making mashed potatoes . . . after I put the groceries away.”

“You work on the potatoes and I’ll finish the groceries.” He dropped her hand.

She could tell that the awkward moment had passed. She was willing to admit that if she’d been in his shoes, she’d have been a little taken aback too.

“Works for me.” She picked up the bag of potatoes, grabbed a pairing knife from the butcher’s block, and opened three cabinets before she found a bowl big enough. On the way to the kitchen table, she grabbed a handful of paper towels. She sat, opened the bag, and started peeling, the skin falling onto the paper towels.

“So, I hear Edith’s house was the bachelor pad after college?” She grinned at Cinco. “I’m having trouble picturing it.”

“We had some good times here.” Rowdy walked out of the pantry with a canister of flour and an armload of seasonings. “There was this one time when we ran out of condoms—”

“Do you have to bring that up?” Cinco’s eyes were huge and the blush started at his collar and was headed north.