The Cowboy's Mail Order Bride (16 page)

She opened a package of ten-for-a-dollar ballpoint pens, pulled one from the plastic wrap, and wrote, “Dear Greg,” but then she didn’t know what to write next. He’d written and she’d responded. It was his turn to write. That’s the way it worked in the old days and it should be a rule.

Bocephus crawled up into her lap, turned around a couple of times, and curled up in a gray ball. Simba chased shadows thrown onto the carpet by the sunrays filtering through the lace curtains.

It was early. She should go back down to the den and visit with Clarice and Dotty as they worked on their cowboy dream catchers, maybe even offer to do the starching job when they finished each one. But she wanted to tell Greg about her day and how much fun she had going to lunch with the ladies.

He’d been so quiet at supper that she wondered if he even thought about writing another letter, especially that soon. From the dates on the letters from Clarice, she and Marvin hadn’t written every day there at first. Toward the end the letters had been postmarked more frequently.

A movement in her peripheral vision caught her attention. When she turned her head, she saw that Simba was attacking something he had tucked into his tummy area and was kicking at it like he intended to kill the wicked thing.

She jumped up so fast that poor little Bocephus went tumbling from her lap to the floor, but she got the letter before it was ripped to shreds. She picked the gray kitten up, returned to her chair, and read,

Dear Emily, I miss you when you aren’t here on the ranch. Just knowing you weren’t in the house made me lonely. I’m beginning to see why Nana spends so many hours reading her letters. I’ve read yours a dozen times…

She picked up her pen after she’d read through the first letter again. Handwritten letters took on a whole new meaning. They were much more than a text message or even an email. They were two people in a vacuum that no one else could ever hack into. She read through the letter again before she started writing,

Dear Greg, Spending the day with the ladies was an experience that words can’t describe. They were so much fun, but I have to admit, I missed riding the horses and cleaning the stables, and I missed you.

She didn’t tell him that everything from the gorgeous dress to little snippets of the conversation with the ladies brought something about him to mind. Or that her breath had caught in her chest when she sat down at the dinner table beside him and his thigh brushed against hers.

Dotty clapped her hands to get everyone’s attention. “Okay, ladies and cowboys, here’s the way we’re doing things tonight. We’ve got eight players so we’re going to run two tables. No partners tonight, just straight-out playing. At the end of the night we’ll have a loser from each table, so we’ll toss a coin to see who hosts next week’s game. I’ve got eight names on paper slips in this bowl. I’m going to divide them evenly. First bunch will sit at this table right here.” She tapped the one in front of her. “Second will take the second table over by the fireplace.”

Clarice held up a palm. “Before we start, I want everyone to know that Emily lost last week and that she did her own cooking. Dotty offered to help and so did I, but she said that it was her loss and she’d do her duty. And you are in for a treat.” She pointed to a tray at the end of the table. Emily had really enjoyed cooking “armadillo toes”—the bacon and cheese wrapped around the jalapeño coated the mouth and kept the heat at a minimum, and she knew her pecan floozies were a mouthwatering treat. Both were among her grandfather’s favorites.

“And,” Dotty held up a hand to hold off the applause, “my kitchen is clean and my oven is spotless, so Emily is welcome to cook in my kitchen anytime she wants to.”

Itchy heat started on Emily’s neck and crept to her cheeks as they all applauded. A quick look around the room netted her a wink from Madge, a big smile from Max, a brief nod from Greg, and a smile from Prissy.

“Maybe you could teach me how to cook,” Prissy whispered.

“Don’t let all that fanfare fool you, ma’am. I’m not all that great. I just made something no one else has,” she whispered back.

Dotty picked out four papers and said, “Rose, Clarice, Madge, and I will play right here. Guess that leaves the rest of you—Emily, Max, Greg, and Prissy—to play at that table. No fists, as little cussin’ as possible, and no bloodshed. Loser at both tables is up for next week’s host. Coin toss will decide the real loser.”

She raised her voice and held up her fist. “Now play dominoes! I always wanted to say that.”

“Well, ain’t I the lucky one,” Max whispered to Greg.

Prissy sighed loudly.

“Something wrong?” Emily asked.

“Nothing anyone can fix but me,” she said.

Greg and Max seated Emily and Prissy and then settled into the remaining chairs. Max turned the dominoes upside down and shuffled them. Greg gave each player seven and the game began.

“Where’s the gold ones?” Emily asked.

“My dominoes. My table,” Clarice said. “You can lose just as well with black and white ones, my child.”

Prissy finally smiled. “We really should go to lunch sometime, Emily. I could use an opinion from someone who doesn’t know me so well.”

“We’ll give you our opinion,” Rose raised her voice.

“You know me,” Prissy said.

Prissy was on Greg’s left, Emily on his right, and Max across the table from him. Greg was frustrated about something and it showed in his lack of attention when he made a horrible play. He kept looking at Max and nodding toward the table where Rose and the ladies were whispering.

They were most likely comparing each of their four names to be sure there were no duplications, but it didn’t take a rocket scientist to know that Greg was catching on to them.

“That was sweet,” Emily said as she played off a double deuce and bit back the giggles.

Greg kept his eyes on his dominoes. “My mind was somewhere else.”

“Well, get it in the game.” Max laid down a trey-deuce off of Emily’s six-deuce.

“Ouch!” Emily said. “Prissy, you just stomped my toe.”

Prissy threw her hand over her mouth. “I’m so sorry. My legs are so long and I really didn’t know that was your toe. I was just trying to get comfortable. I hate being this danged tall.”

“Well, then give me some of that height,” Rose said. “I was lookin’ at that weight chart in the doctor’s office and if I was five feet eight inches I wouldn’t be a pound overweight.”

Emily scooted her chair as far to the left as she could and moved her legs to one side in such a way that her knees were against Greg’s thigh.

“I said I was sorry,” Prissy pouted.

“You are forgiven, but I’m not taking any chances of you getting my other foot. I intend to dance all the leather off a brand-new pair of shoes at the party on Friday.” Emily smiled.

“Oh, are you going with Greg?” Prissy asked.

“No, she’s going with me,” Clarice answered. “Y’all going to play dominoes over there or keep fussin’?”

“Play dominoes,” Emily said.

Greg looked at Prissy and said, “Your turn. What has Dotty had you working on today? She said something was haywire in her computer.”

Prissy studied her dominoes for a full minute. “Just a glitch in a game she likes to play.” She put down a domino that would be a bitch to play off of and laid her hand on Greg’s wrist. “What’s wrong with you tonight? Your mind is off somewhere else. Are you going to have to cook next week?”

“Hey, Prissy, did you know that Tommy Randolph is leaving your grandpa’s ranch?” Max asked. “I’m having coffee with him in the morning at Braum’s to discuss what it would take for him to come work for me.”

The woman’s face lost all color and her pretty red lips made a perfect circle as she sucked air and jerked her hand away from Greg’s wrist. “Tommy would never leave my grandpa’s ranch.”

“He might if I make him a good offer. We were talking last week and he said that things were getting kind of sticky over there. I had the impression that it had to do with a woman, but that’s his personal business and I don’t pry. He’s been working on a ranch for more than ten years, and I think he’d train up to be foreman quality, so I’m going to offer him a sweet deal,” Max said. “Your turn, Greg.”

Greg was more careful that time. He studied the table and his hand before he played. “I’d love to recruit Tommy for Lightning Ridge. That man can tear down a tractor and put it back together faster’n greased lighting.”

Clarice called out across the room, “Hey, did I hear Tommy Randolph’s name over there? Offer him fifty percent more than he’s making and tell him we’ll give him his own trailer. He can step into your place when you retire, Max.”

Prissy inhaled deeply and let it out slowly.

“So you grew up with cows and barbed wire like the rest of us?” Emily asked. Poor girl looked like she was about to faint dead away and Emily sure didn’t want Prissy falling on her other foot.

Prissy fiddled with the multicolored scarf around her neck. The browns and turquoise colors blended beautifully with her ecru-colored sweater and dark brown slacks.

“I grew up in town. I hate the smell of cows and anything to do with a ranch. But going to Grandpa’s ranch doesn’t mean I have to wear boots and a hat and look like a man.” She clamped a hand over her mouth. “I’m so sorry. That came out wrong. I didn’t mean you look like a man.”

Max put out a domino. “I’m not stealing Tommy. Your grandfather’s been a good friend of the family here on Lightning Ridge for years, but if the guy is feeling like he needs a change, I’m willing to give him one. He’ll just find another ranch if we don’t take him on, and I’m not getting any younger. Man can do a lot worse than working as a foreman on a ranch. Your older brother is the foreman at your grandpa’s ranch, so that position is going to stay in the family. Tommy don’t have much room for advancement over there.”

“Ryder is happy working with Grandpa,” Prissy said. “What about when Greg has children? What if one of them wants to be a foreman?”

“I reckon that’s at least twenty, thirty years down the road if he had one next year. By then Tommy will be ready to hand over the reins to him or her,” Max said.

Prissy laid out a domino. “What do you mean him or
her
? A woman could never be a foreman. She can be the wife of the owner like Grandma, but a foreman? Come on, Max. I wouldn’t want my daughter to be out walking in cow manure in her high heels.”

“I own a ranch and I suppose you could say I’ve been the foreman of it for the past five years. And I wear scuffed-up cowboy boots and an old mustard-colored work coat and a Stetson when I’m out there shoveling crap out of horse stalls or working cattle. Woman does what a woman has to do,” Emily said.

“Ain’t that the truth,” Prissy said softly.

A tinny version of “Hillbilly Bone” caused everyone in the room to look toward the fireplace. It wasn’t Emily’s ringtone, and Greg wasn’t jumping to grab the phone either. Max looked at the other table and all four women shook their heads.

“That will be mine,” Prissy said. “Excuse me. I’ll have to take it.”

“Hillbilly Bone” was hers? That made no sense at all. She wore custom-made clothes and had her hair done in Dallas or maybe even New York City. Who in the hell would she give a ringtone like that to?

She turned her back to the tables and whispered only a few words. Emily made out “right now?” and “I don’t believe it,” but the rest was just mumblings covered up by a crackling fire and conversation at the other table.

She shoved the phone in her purse and in a couple of long strides was back at the table. “I’m so sorry, but I have to leave. Nice seeing y’all, and maybe I’ll play again another time. Sorry I missed out on your cooking, Emily. And about that lunch, maybe next week?”

“Wonder who that was?” Max asked when she was out of the room.

“I’d guess that it was Tommy,” Emily said. “Now let’s get serious about this game.”

She moved her legs back under the table. No way could she concentrate with Greg touching her, and she’d be damned if she cooked two weeks in a row.

“Who is that exquisite creature?” Mason Harper set his scotch down with a thud on the shiny bar top.

Greg turned around on the bar stool and his mouth went as dry as if he’d been sucking on an alum lollipop. He downed the beer left in his longneck Coors before he could speak.

“Well, I’m going to find out right now.” Mason stood up and brushed the shoulders of his Western-cut jacket.

“That would be Emily Cooper, my mother’s assistant and the new girl at Lightning Ridge,” Greg said.

“Well, hell! Like the old saying goes, if it wasn’t for bad luck, I’d have no luck at all.”

“And what does that mean?” Greg couldn’t peel his eyes away from her in that blue dress. It looked like she was wearing cool water the exact same shade as her eyes.

“It means that I’m not so far from Ravenna that I don’t hear the gossip. And I’ve been left out in the cold again because you’ve done beat my time.”

“You didn’t hear wrong.” Greg took a deep breath. Several cowboys had already headed toward Clarice and Emily, no doubt angling for an introduction.

Mason smiled. “Come on, cowboy. You can introduce me to Emily just in case she decides she doesn’t like you.”

***

Emily was aware of exactly where Greg was sitting when she walked in the door. He was dressed in black creased jeans that stacked up just right over his shiny black boots. His silver belt buckle was embossed with the Lightning Ridge brand. Flashes of a white shirt showed behind the lapels of his black Western-cut jacket. Her mouth was so dry that she craved just one sip of that longneck Coors he was holding.

Clarice introduced people to her so fast that she’d never remember any of the names. She’d shaken hands with dozens of cowboys and as many ladies when suddenly someone turned up the heat in the Denison Country Club about forty degrees. She felt Greg’s hand on her bare back exactly one second before she looked past his glasses into his green eyes and realized that it was the sexual energy between them that had caused the sudden rise in temperature and that it had nothing to do with the thermometer.

“Emily, this is my friend, Mason Harper. He’s got a ranch called Bois D’Arc Bend over near Whitewright and a set of twin girls that look like angels but are living proof that looks can be deceiving.”

She extended her hand. “Pleased to meet you.”

Not a single spark flashed between them even though he was as tall as Greg and had gorgeous big brown eyes and a killer smile.

“Pleasure is all mine. How are you this evening, Miz Clarice?”

“I’m fine, thanks for asking, Mason. You should bring the twins over to our ranch sometime. I bet they are half-grown by now,” she said.

“They would love that, I’m sure, and they are growing up faster than I like,” he said.

Mason waved at a couple across the room and headed in that direction. “Oh, there is Lucas and his new bride. Did you hear that they got married over Christmas? Baby’s already on the way. His grandfather and daddy are happy as piglets in a fresh wallow.”

Greg slipped an arm around Clarice and one around Emily. “So can I tell everyone that you two lovely ladies are my dates tonight?”

“I’m Clarice’s date. You’ll have to ask her,” Emily said.

Clarice patted their shoulders. “I’m going to talk to Natalie. Yes, my grandson. I’ll relinquish my date into your hands until the clock strikes midnight. Then you are driving home alone and my date is driving me home in the van. That’s your punishment for telling us that you had a date.”

The band kicked off with a slow two-stepping song, and Greg held out his hand. “May I have this dance, ma’am, even if you aren’t my date?”

She let him lead her to the middle of the dance floor. The singer did a fine job of Toby Keith’s song “You Shouldn’t Kiss Me Like That,” and Greg was an expert dancer, one that she could easily partner with for the rest of the night.

The lyrics said that he had gotten a funny feeling the moment that her lips touched his. Greg pulled her closer and looped both of his hands around her waist. She reached up and wrapped hers around his neck and laid her head on his chest. His heartbeat was strong and steady, but it beat faster when he started singing softly in her ear. The words said that everyone was watching them and thinking that they were falling in love and that they would never believe that they were just friends.

She leaned back and looked up at him. “Do you think everyone thinks that we are falling in love?”

“I imagine they are.”

The male singer stepped aside, and a lady in tight-fitting jeans and a red satin shirt took the microphone. She sang a slow Lorrie Morgan song, and Greg brought the dance down to a slow country waltz. The lyrics sunk deep into Emily’s soul, but she didn’t hear them, just felt the spirit of the melody as her heartbeats blended in unison with Greg’s.

“Please be my real date,” he whispered.

She barely nodded.

“Is that a yes?” he asked.

“Okay, but if Miz Clarice needs me to get her some punch or another shot of bourbon, you’ll have to take the backseat for a little while,” she teased.

He tipped her chin up with his fist and brushed a sweet kiss across her lips. “That’s just so everyone in this room knows that we are together tonight.”

“Branding your territory, are you?” she asked.

He grinned.

She tiptoed and kissed him long, hard, and passionately. “Now all those hussies staring at your cute little ass will know that you are branded for the night too.”

“Whew!” The grin widened. “Let’s get out of this place and find a motel room.”

“I don’t do sex on first dates,” she said. “And besides, two kisses are probably all that Clarice wants to explain for one night.”

“You really think my ass is cute?” he asked.

“If I didn’t I wouldn’t have said it,” she answered.

“Well, darlin’, I think all of you is downright sexy as hell tonight. That dress looks like moving water,” he said.

She smiled. “Why, Greg, you are romantic at heart, but I bet you say that to all the girls.”

“Never said it before. Never saw anyone that could take my breath away like you do,” he said.

***

The night was over too soon.

It lasted until eternity and beyond.

How both could be the truth was a complete mystery, but that’s the way Emily felt at midnight when the party ended. She drove Clarice home in the van, but she could see the headlights of Greg’s truck in the rearview the whole way home.

Home?

When did that happen? Two weeks ago, her ranch out there in west Texas was home. A grown, responsible woman did not make a change in her thinking like that in such a short time. Not even after a Cinderella evening when she had been transformed into the belle of the ball.

Home?

Gramps used to say that home was where the heart was. That was scary as hell. Her heart should be out there in the flat country, not in north Texas rolling hills country, tangled up in mesquite and scrub oak.

“You sure are serious and quiet,” Clarice said.

“So are you,” Emily said.

“I was thinking about Marvin. I danced lots of times at Angus parties with my Lester. He was a good dancer and a wonderful man and I adored him. I never got to dance one time with Marvin. Tell me, Emily, did he like to dance?”

Emily slowed down as she drove through Ravenna. “He loved to dance. He and Nana used to dance around the living room floor, and sometimes he’d dance with me after she was gone.”

“I suppose it’s come about from reading those letters again, but I wish I’d danced with him, held him, and kissed him like you did Greg tonight. I wish I had that memory, even if it hadn’t worked out and fate declared that I would marry Lester.” She sighed.

Emily reached across the console and patted Clarice’s hand. “Gramps felt the same way about you. He adored Nana, but his past was unsettled.”

Clarice leaned over and kissed Emily on the cheek. “Thank you for tonight, Emily. You made my grandson happy, and that made me happy.”

Emily’s smile lit up the van. “He made me very happy tonight.”

Clarice got out of the van and made her way up the steps, opened the front door, and disappeared inside the house. Emily drove the van around to the detached garage and parked it. She grabbed her weathered old work coat from the backseat and slipped her arms into it when she got out of the van.

“That sets off the whole look,” Greg said from the shadows.

“It’s cold.”

“Tough as nails on the outside. Soft and gentle on the inside,” he said.

“You got it, cowboy,” she answered.

He took a step forward and she did the same. Somehow the distance between them disappeared and she was in his arms. His lips were on hers, his tongue making love to her mouth, and she was floating somewhere between the garage and heaven.

His hand slipped inside the coat and massaged her bare back as he deepened the kisses even more. She leaned in, giving way to the fire that had been building all evening as they danced. His fingers inched their way down inside the back of her dress.

“My God,” he groaned.

“What?”

“If I’d known you didn’t have anything on under that dress, I would have busted out my zipper. I had to think about cleaning horse stalls to keep from having a problem as it was,” he whispered.

“This zipper,” she said as she laid a hand just below his belt buckle.

“I thought you didn’t do sex on first dates,” he said.

“I’m not totally inflexible, Mr. Adams,” she said.

“Oh, I bet you are very flexible.”

“Your truck or the van?”

His hand cradled her neck as his lips came closer. “Two nice bedrooms in the house.”

“Not with Clarice and Dotty in listening distance,” she mumbled between scorching hot kisses.

He scooped her up in his arms and carried her across the garage floor to a door on the other side of his truck. He opened it and she pulled away from his lips.

“What is this? In a closet? Is it big enough?”

“Trust me, Emily.”

He carried her up a flight of narrow stairs to an attic room with a sloped ceiling. A twin-sized bed shoved up against the wall with a small table beside it was the only furniture in the whole room. He laid her down gently on a handmade quilt and stretched out beside her.

“You feel so good just lyin’ here beside me,” he whispered hoarsely.

She slipped up a hand in the narrow space between them and shoved his jacket down over his shoulders. He helped her and tossed it across the room, then slowly removed her coat and threw it in the general direction of his jacket.

A window above the bed made a picture frame for a big lovers’ moon sitting in the middle of twinkling stars on a midnight blue background. The light of the moon sharpened the angles of his face. She reached up and traced his lip line, then his strong jaw.

“Your touch brings those stars out there into the room with us.” His deep drawl sent warmth through her veins.

“I know. You do the same to me.”

“I’ve wanted to touch you all week. Even just your hand or your cheek. Keeping my hands to myself has almost driven me insane.”

She unfastened his shirt, one button at a time, kissing his muscular chest as she bared it.

He pulled her even closer and slipped the dress up over her head. “My God, you are beautiful.”

“I believe that’s a cliché line from an old movie.”

“I don’t give a damn where it came from, it’s the gospel truth, Emily. You are stunning.” He teased her with strings of kisses starting at her lips and going to that tender part of the neck right below her ear before he moved down to her breasts, her ribs, and her belly button. She trembled and arched toward him when he went even lower.

“I’m going to catch plumb on fire if you don’t get on with it.”

“I’m already on fire, and I don’t want to have sex with you, Emily. I want to make love to you,” he said. “Protection is…”

“I’m on the pill. We don’t need anything else.”

She pushed the covers back and straddled his waist and unzipped his jeans. “Is this an eight-second bareback bronc ride, or is it an hour-long horse ride up to the cabin and back?”

“First or second time?”

She giggled. She had trouble pulling his belt from the loops, so she left the sides hanging as she freed his erection from the tight jeans. “Help me get rid of all this packaging. I want the present, not the jeans it came in. And darlin’, if I’d known that you were commando, we would have snuck out of the dance and locked the bathroom door.”

“We call it going cowboy, not commando.” He kicked his jeans and boots off in one easy motion.

“I call it downright damn sexy.”

“Cold is not my friend.” He chuckled.

She slipped her warm hand around his erection and said, “This help?”

He returned the favor, running a hand up her inner thigh until he reached the place that had her wiggling and moaning in less than a minute. “It’s been a while, Emily. Would you be terribly disappointed if the first was a bronc ride and the second was a trip to the cabin?”

“And the third time can be…” she panted.

He covered her mouth with his and slid into her with a long, hard thrust. She groaned and worked with him, rocking at the right time to bring them both the most pleasure. He took her to breathtaking heights half a dozen times and then backed off before the thrusts finally became shorter and faster.

“God, that feels so good. I think this is a trip to the cabin instead of an eight-second ride,” she panted.

“I never knew anything could feel like this.” His drawl was deep, hoarse, and hungry.

“Me either,” she moaned.

“Ready?”

The moonlight shifted so that she could see his eyes change from sexy to soft and dreamy. She managed to nod, but she didn’t have the breath to answer.

He slipped his hands under her bottom and with a dozen fast and furious thrusts, he brought her right up to the biggest climax she’d ever known.

“Wow… all to hell!” The words came out in a high-pitched squeal when she could catch enough breath to force them out of her mouth. She floated toward the window, toward the big lovers’ moon and the stars, and then she fell back to the narrow bed with a thump that knocked the breath out of her all over again.