The Cowboy's Mail Order Bride (6 page)

But somewhere down deep in his heart, a little jealousy reared up. Crap! He didn’t have any right getting jealous over a girl he barely knew and who was only in Ravenna for four weeks anyway.

“Black hair and blue eyes? Does she look like Megan Fox?” Jeremiah asked.

“More like that woman who plays on the show that Nana and Dotty used to watch,
Hart
of
Dixie
,” he said.

“Rachel Bilson? She doesn’t have black hair and she’s not blue-eyed,” Jeremiah said.

“Well, give her blue eyes and dye her hair black and you’ve Emily. Where are you? I hear road traffic.” Greg asked.

“I’m in Happy right now. Had to take a hop over to Amarillo today on some other business, so I rented a car and drove over here to see if everything I’d learned was true. Don’t be mad at me. It’s the PI in me that doesn’t take anything at face value. This place is not a whole lot bigger than Ravenna. Her grandpa’s ranch was sold off to one of her cousins, as the old guy needed the money for cancer treatment, and it’s only about a hundred acres these days, but her extended family owns more land than Lightning Ridge has.”

“You sure that picture of her didn’t arouse your inner love bug?” Greg asked.

“Hush, and listen. I talked to the high school principal and he said the Coopers had been here for more than sixty years. Her grandfather, Marvin, served on the school board a long time ago, and there’s a picture of him in the hallway. Distinguished-looking old cowboy with bright blue eyes. I asked the lady at a local burger shop about Marvin and Emily, and according to her, Emily has wings and a halo. She said that when Marvin got cancer, Emily took up the reins and ran the ranch and took care of him too. Her cousin, Taylor Massey, helped some, but she did most of it.”

It sounded like Jeremiah was slurping on a cup of coffee and then he went on, “Tell me she doesn’t turn your head just a little bit and I’ll tell you that you are crazy.”

“What good would it do? She’s only here for a month and then she’ll be gone. It would be a poor business deal,” Greg answered.

“Got to go. Client calling back,” Jeremiah said.

Greg didn’t even get in a good-bye before the line went dead. He didn’t believe in love at first sight any more than he believed in Internet dating. Even though his good friend, Lucas Allen, over in Savoy, had wound up with a helluva nice woman last Christmas that he’d met over the Internet. But Lucas said it damn sure wasn’t one of those crazy dating services where people can put up any old picture or say anything in their profiles. He’d met Natalie through a mutual friend that she talked to on Skype every night.

“I still don’t believe in love at first sight,” he declared as he crawled inside his work truck with a fixed radiator and drove out to the place where Max was repairing fences.

***

The tractor ran smoothly and the CD case in the cab was filled with country music. Emily wondered if they’d be playing Shoot the Moon or Chicken Foot in dominoes that evening. And how in the devil did they bet? Did they all lay out five bucks and the winner got the pot?

She whipped the wheel of the machine around and started back down the long side of the acreage when her phone rang. She picked it up from the seat and said, “Hello, Taylor.”

“I hear an engine and country music. Are you on a tractor?”

“Yes, I am.”

“What the hell are you doing that for? I thought they hired you to be a personal assistant,” he said.

“Personal assistant wasn’t needed at the house today so she’s helping on the ranch. I mucked out stables this morning and I met a woman who has helped Clarice get used to computers. Her name is Prissy and I think she may be OCD and she’s taught the whole bunch of these people to write every waking thought on sticky notes and plaster them to the refrigerator. There’s something fishy going on with her and Dotty and Clarice. I can just feel it in my bones,” Emily said.

“You did what? Are they crazy?” Taylor yelled into the phone. “Don’t they have hired hands to do that kind of work?”

“I also cleaned up a tack room and fixed the radiator on an old truck,” Emily said.

“Are you nuts?”

“Hard work never hurt or killed anyone,” Emily answered.

“Em, darlin’, if you want ranch work, I’ll hire you tomorrow as ranch foreman. You don’t have to take a job mucking out stables, for God’s sake.”

Emily shifted into a lower gear when she hit hard ground. “It’s good for me to get my hands dirty. Call it therapy, and I think Gramps likes what I’m doing. I get the feeling that he is right beside me here and that he’s tellin’ me to stay.”

“Marvin is gone, Emily. Face it, and what’s this fishy thing going on?” Taylor growled.

Emily sucked air. “I have faced it. I faced it every day for five years, every morning when I went to see if he’d died in his sleep. I need this time away from Happy to get my bearings and get over his death. So don’t preach at me, Taylor. And the fishy thing is just that. Prissy came to dinner and she and the ladies had these little coy looks going on. It’s got something to do with Greg, I’m sure.”

The click of a cigarette lighter said that he was lighting up. “Be careful, honey. I just don’t want to see you get hurt.”

“Anything exciting on the home front?” she asked.

“Valentine’s dance over at the Franks’ place next week. Melinda called and asked me to be her date,” Taylor said.

Melinda came from good ranching stock. Her father, Gus Franks, owned the ranch right next to the Cooper place. Melinda got her dark hair and big brown eyes from her Latina mother. She’d be a good match for Taylor.

“Have fun,” Emily said.

“You could easily be here in time to go too. Her brother doesn’t have a date yet, and he’s been sweet on you for years.”

“No, thank you. Give Melinda a hug for me. Did I tell you we’re all playing dominoes tonight?”

“You will let that sweet old lady win one hand, won’t you?” Taylor asked.

“Maybe, but I won’t let Greg win anything. It’ll be fun to beat him. He says I have to have fifty dollars just to buy into the game, but the way Clarice scolded him, I reckon he was bullshittin’ me. I may own his farm when the night is done.”

“Why are you bein’ mean to the cowboy? You said he was nice.”

“He rattles me,” Emily admitted.

“Well, shit!” Taylor swore.

“Don’t worry about it.”

“I’ll worry even more than before. You haven’t told me that a man rattled you in years, not since you were in college. That’s enough to worry me. Use your business sense and not your heart. That gets you in trouble all the time. And do not put your acreage up for stakes,” Taylor said.

“I wouldn’t dream of it. Talk to you later.” Emily laid the phone in her lap. She turned the tractor around when she reached the barbed wire fence. In a few weeks, the grass would be knee high and the cattle would be grazing in the very pasture where she plowed. It was a never-ending job, but come fall when they had the big cattle sale, they’d see the profit from all the hard work. The spring calves would be fat and would bring in maximum dollar.

“But I won’t be here to see that. I probably won’t even be here to see this pasture turn green. A few weeks and Clarice will get tired of talking about Marvin and I’ll have outlived my usefulness. And by then I’ll have the closure I want and I’ll be back at Shine Canyon putting my ranch back together.”

She put an old Conway Twitty CD in the player. Gramps loved Conway, especially when he sang with Loretta Lynn. He’d sit in his recliner and keep time to the music by tapping his thumb on the chair arm. She smiled at the sweet memory.

When he wasn’t listening to music, he wanted to watch old John Wayne Western movies or reruns of anything that had to do with cowboys, modern day or the old guys, on television.

Those last few weeks he couldn’t keep his eyes open to watch television, but he asked for music every day and the look on his face said that it took him back to another time in his life when he was a younger man. Emily wondered if his mind had been on Clarice Barton when he listened to the country songs.

Dotty put six names in a bowl and shook it around. “First two names are partners for the night. We’re only going to run one table, so there’ll be a player and an advisor. Y’all know the stakes, so we don’t have to go over those. Now first name is Madge and I’m the second one. So we will be partners.”

Dotty giggled. “Now who is next? I got the paper in my hand. It’s Greg. Will he partner up with Rose or Clarice or maybe Emily?”

“Come on, Dotty,” Greg said.

“Don’t be impatient,” she said. “Greg will be with…” She unfolded the paper and said, “Rose.”

Emily looked at Clarice. “Guess we’ll have to show them who is boss.”

“In your dreams. Me and Rose can whip you all with an eye patch over one eye, can’t we, Rose?” Greg grinned.

“And by candlelight.” Rose nodded.

“Don’t let Rose with her sweet angel face fool you,” Clarice whispered to Emily. “She’s mean as a hungry coyote when it comes to dominoes.”

“Now you don’t go telling Emily stories like that. I’m just an old lady who likes to play dominoes. It’s not like I count cards.” Rose had thin, wavy white hair, a round face, and a thick waist. She wore a red double-knit pantsuit that had been out of style for forty years, but somehow it looked great on her. Maybe she was an older woman who set the style rather than followed it, and by the end of summer, everyone would be trying to find vintage pantsuits.

“Y’all might as well watch from the sidelines. Me and Madge are the winners tonight,” Dotty announced. “And if I win, I get…”

Clarice shot a look across the living room before Dotty could finish.

Dotty threw up both palms to ward off the dirty look. “Don’t look at me like that. I wasn’t going to say a fifth of Jack. Lord, if I even look at a bottle again, you’ll make me go to those damned old meetings and I ain’t got time to listen to folks stand up and tell me their problems. I was going to say that I was going to treat myself to one of them fancy massages when we go get our hair done this week,” Dotty said, then leaned over and cupped her hand over Emily’s ear. “Don’t you tattle on me, but I catch a couple of meetings a month at the church. It’s good for me to go to them and helps keep me sober, but I’ll be hanged if they know it.”

Emily pulled several bills from her shirt pocket. “Does my money go on the center of the table?”

Clarice frowned at Greg. “I told you to tell her on the way to the stables that we don’t really play for money.”

Emily popped him on the shoulder and stuffed the bills back in her pocket.

He grabbed his bicep and moaned. “Nana, I can’t play. She’s done broke my arm.”

“Bullshit,” Dotty said. “And if it is broke, suck it up and play with the other hand.”

“Why’d you tell her that we play for money?” Madge asked.

“It was a test to see if she really thought she was any good. I didn’t want a partner who couldn’t hold her own. I figured if she was willing to bring money to the game, then she might not be all hat and no cowgirl.”

Emily held her hands in her lap to keep from blowing on the one that had touched his arm. Dammit! How did just a simple two-second slap create so much heat? “What made you think I’d be your partner?”

“I knew they’d draw because they only set up one table tonight and you never know what the draw might do,” he answered.

“You kids stop fighting. We’re here to play, so hush and let’s get serious about this so we can eat,” Rose said and then leaned over to whisper in Madge’s ear like little girls on the playground.

Emily heard something about new girl on western, but that was all she caught.

“We play for fun, but the loser has to host the next domino night. Last week Clarice lost, so she’s hosting tonight. I love it when she loses because Dotty cooks when she does,” Madge explained.

Madge was built on a square frame—almost as wide as she was tall. Her round face sported a weak chin, a wide forehead, and narrow-set green eyes that sparkled when she talked. She wore an orange Western-cut shirt out over her stretch jeans. Her bright orange wedge heels had enough bling on the toes to blind a person.

“You play and I’ll advise, okay?” Rose asked Greg.

“You’re better than I am,” he said.

“That’s why I’m going to advise you. Besides, I lose track of the score when I gossip, and I’ve got stories to tell,” Rose said.

All three of the other women shot her a look and she giggled. “Some stories you tell and some you keep close for another day.”

Clarice turned to Emily. “You play and I’ll sit back and boss. Now what do you know, Rose, that can be shared in present company? Come on, tell us, what is it?”

Madge sat down in the chair nearest the table and started to shuffle. “You can be the silent partner tonight, Dotty.” Then she leaned over, cupped her hand over Dotty’s ear, and whispered something about farmers and a looker.

Dotty poured the dominoes out of a velvet drawstring bag and turned them over. “I ain’t never been silent about anything. Oprah called it multitasking when she was on the television.”

“Wow!” Emily said.

She’d never seen gold-plated dominoes with colored stones instead of dots.

Clarice leaned over and whispered, “It’s fake gold and the stones are colored glass. They aren’t real diamonds and emeralds.”

“They’re still sparkly,” Emily said.

“Greg bought them for her for her eightieth birthday. The dominoes we play with at my house are the plain old black-and-white kind.” Madge giggled.

“I thought Prissy was coming tonight. I had a computer question to ask her,” Rose asked.

“Maybe I could help. I know my way around computers pretty good,” Emily said.

“Thanks, darlin’, but this is a personal problem and Prissy already knows all about it. I’ll just call her and tell her I’m making lasagna for dinner and she’ll be right over,” Rose said.

“Are we here to play dominoes or gossip?” Greg asked.

“Both,” Dotty and Clarice said at the same time.

Greg laid out a double six. Twelve sparkling red stones all total. Right away Rose put a six-four at the end of that and the game was on. In half an hour the table looked like a giant chicken foot. Dotty and Madge won that round. Then they went to the more complicated Shoot the Moon, and Dotty and Madge won round one of that one and Rose and Greg won the second round.

Clarice patted Emily on the wrist. “Looks like me and you are going to host and cook next week. I heard that Prissy has got a secret boyfriend. Everyone at church is just dying to know who he is, but she hasn’t even told her best friends. I bet it’s one of those cowboys that her granddad hired. Has she told you anything, Greg?”

Greg shrugged. “If she did, I wouldn’t tell y’all since it would be in confidence.”

Dotty drew her eyebrows down. “I’ll ask Jeremiah. I bet he knows what’s going on. He and Prissy are still real good friends. He tried to hire her to work in his business, but she turned him down. That does it for this evening. Emily is going to cook next week. Let’s take this party to the dining room.”

Emily glanced at Dotty, who threw up her palms and exclaimed, “Don’t look at me. It’s up to you to do the cooking, but you’d better not leave my kitchen or my oven in a mess. I won so I’m treating myself to that massage, and no cooking on domino day.”

“We should have those little pecan pie tarts, Nana,” Greg suggested.

“I’m horrible at pie crust. How about you?” Clarice asked.

Emily smiled sweetly. “It’ll be a surprise. And next week, I won’t
let
Greg win.”

“You didn’t let me win tonight,” he said.

“Of course I did. You look like you’d be the type to pout if you lose, and I didn’t want to put up with you whining around like a little girl all week,” she teased.

Greg pushed the dominoes toward her with a grin on his face and a twinkle in his sexy green eyes. “Loser also has to put the dominoes away. I won this fair and square, so put them away, woman.”

“Sure you
won
, darlin’.” She patted him on the arm and winked at the ladies.

She quickly busied herself putting the dominoes away. Maybe no one else saw the goose bumps on her arms and the chills chasing down her back when she touched his arm. Rattling her was a huge understatement. That cowboy just flat turned her temperature up to the boiling point.

“Next week you will
lose
and you will cook just for teasing me about the money.” Maybe words would make the ache in her body disappear. Fate wasn’t being nice when she made Greg so damn sexy and then put Emily’s ranch eight hours away from his land.

“You think I can’t cook?” Greg asked.

“Can you?” She smiled sweetly.

Rose stood up. “There you two go again, fussing and fighting. Or do they call it flirting?” It was her turn to act like a second grade little girl and whisper in Clarice’s ear.

“Y’all know that secrets are rude,” Greg said.

“Now what would us old women have secrets about?” Rose giggled.

“I’m hungry,” Greg said.

“Me too, and we aren’t flirting,” Emily said.

Finger foods were laid out beautifully on crystal platters. Slider sandwiches stuffed with ham and cheese, a vegetable tray with a scrumptious-looking dip, a fruit tray with strawberry cream cheese dip, and a cheese ball covered in pecans with an assortment of crackers surrounding it. A three-section warmer held tiny egg rolls, buffalo wings, and smoky sausages in barbecue sauce. Several kinds of homemade cookies, including oatmeal raisin, which was Emily’s favorite, were stacked on pretty plates at the other end of the table.

How in the devil was she supposed to top a spread like that the next week? Maybe she should just write Clarice a note on Sunday and sneak out before daybreak on Monday. She made it to the dining room in time to hear Rose talking softly to Clarice.

“I write down what she says, but I swear I can’t remember what those letters all stand for. FYI, OMG, WTF… I lost my notebook. I know one of them has a dirty word in it, but I can’t remember what they are. If she don’t come over tomorrow I won’t be able to get on the laptop.”

Rose blushed when she noticed that Emily was in the room. What in the devil were these old girls into? Had they discovered Internet dating for seniors?

***

“What a day! Gramps, I wish you were here so I could tell you all about it,” Emily whispered at her reflection in the bathroom mirror.

It had gone by in a fast blur, and yet it had been the most exciting day she’d spent in years. As she brushed her teeth, she recaptured the highlights and most of them had to do with the expressions on Greg’s face throughout the day.

It was only ten thirty when she crawled between the soft sheets and shut her eyes, but sleep would not come. Nothing helped! Not beating on the pillow. Not flipping from one side to the other. Not sitting up and staring into the semidarkness or imagining baby calves hopping over a low fence.

“I need warm milk. Either that or a double shot of Gramps’s moonshine, and since the only jar left is on Shine Canyon, I guess it’s milk.” She slid out of bed, peeked out the bedroom door, and slipped out into the dark landing.

Tiptoeing down the stairs and across the foyer, she used the moonlight coming in through the windows to make her way to the kitchen. She carefully poured milk into a coffee mug, set the microwave for twenty seconds, and waited until the ding.

“Shhhh,” she hissed at the microwave. She didn’t want to wake up everyone in the house just because she was too worked up to get to sleep. She took a sip and decided that it needed chocolate. She held the refrigerator door open with her foot and squeezed a stream of chocolate syrup into the glass. She stirred with her finger, let the door go shut, and took a sip.

“Couldn’t sleep either?” Greg asked from the shadows.

She had to swallow fast to keep from spewing chocolate milk all over the kitchen floor and cabinets. In the semidarkness, she could see that he wore light gray sweat bottoms hanging low on his hips, no shirt, and no glasses. He was so sexy that it plumb took her breath away.

The second hard swallow had nothing to do with milk and everything to do with a half-naked man right in front of her.

“Must’ve been all that late-night food,” she muttered. “I even tried counting baby calves jumping over a rail fence.”

With a flick of the wrist, he flipped the light switch. “That looks pretty good. Think I’ll join you. I count calves in a pen rather than watching them jump over a fence. If I did that, I’d start worrying about catching them all.”

She immediately tugged at her shirttail, but the flannel didn’t stretch or cover any more of her legs. “I’ll just go on back to my room.”

“Stay and talk to me,” he said.

The clock in the living room chimed twelve times and she smiled. “I’m not dressed to stay and talk to you.”

“I got the pants. You got the shirt. Between us, we’re dressed.” He poured a glass of milk and added two long shots of chocolate. “Let’s go to the living room where the chairs are more comfortable.”

“Aha,” she said when realization hit.

Fate was throwing another test at her, daring her to be alone with him.

He turned the kitchen light off. “Aha, what?”

“Nothing.”

Be damned if she’d tell him that she’d figured out what fate was up to. She was being tested to see if she really did have roots on her ranch in Shine Canyon. This is what her grandfather was talking about all the time. Emily Cooper was as wily as fate, and not one thing could be thrown at her that she couldn’t handle. Well, okay, maybe not dominoes, but if Greg hadn’t smelled like heaven sitting right beside her all evening, and if he hadn’t kept brushing her fingertips, she might have had a better chance at winning the game.

She led the way across the foyer and into the living room. Greg followed her and turned on a lamp at the end of the sofa. She set her half-empty glass on a coaster and curled up in the corner of the sofa.

***

Greg had laid his book and glasses aside when he’d heard her bedroom door open and soft footsteps padding down the staircase. He followed her to the kitchen and watched from the shadows as she heated milk. Her black hair had been set loose from the ponytail and floated in gentle waves down past her shoulders. The shirttail hem on the flannel shirt she wore curved up on the side to show fine, shapely legs.