A Knight In Cowboy Boots (10 page)

Zach dug his wallet out of his back pocket. “Here’s forty bucks. Let me know if you need more.”

“You seeing her again?”

“I’ve got a supper invite for tomorrow night.” Zach couldn’t help sliding a toe over into bragging mode. Regardless of his suspicions, she was still a hot brunette. “At her place.”

“And all it cost you was letting her shoot you. You done good. Usually takes years of marriage for a woman to work up to that,” Jake said, letting some the wind out of Zach’s sails.

“Oh, shut up.”

“Let me know if she poisons you for dinner.”

“Yeah, since you’re in pre-vet school, you can come and pump my stomach.”

“Nah, we just shoot critters who’ve been poisoned. More humane.”

“Thanks a lot.”

“No problem.”

“At least say nice things about me at the burying.”

“You got it,” Jake said with a smile. “On my way out, I’ll tell Rachel your arm’s fine and that she’s perfectly competent to re-bandage it if you need it. I’ll let you know about the social security number soon, but this afternoon, I gotta study for a test.”

“You? Study?” Jake was in his last year of pre-vet school at the College Station branch of Texas A&M. The Galveston branch didn’t offer veterinary studies, but Jake kept getting too distracted by the courses that interested him to take the unrelated core requirements a degree required. Galveston didn’t have those distractions.

“Yeah. I gotta pass this Humanities course. I couldn’t care less about Baroque music, but I guess they think I have a hankering to play some for old Bessie one day.”

Zach grinned at the mental image that conjured up. “Well, whenever you can. I don’t think she’s going anywhere. Like I said, it’s probably just my overactive imagination anyway.”

*

Just before noon, Maddie’s phone rang. She picked it up, half hoping it was Zach, calling to cancel. She got the first half right at least.

“Hey. What are we having for dinner?”

“Meatloaf and mashed potatoes with gravy. Isn’t that what you wanted?”

“Yeah, but you women have been known to get creative on a man without warning. I figured I’d bring the beverage, but I didn’t want to bring beer if it was a wine sorta dinner.”

“No, it’s definitely not a wine dinner.”

“Good. What vintage of beer do you like?”

The question, asked in Zach’s slow drawl, caught Maddie off guard. Her throat slammed shut. Vince had always referred to brands of beer as vintages.

“Maddie? You still there?”

She cleared her throat and forced words past the lump lodged there. “I’m here.” Her voice was thin and wobbly. She cleared her throat again. “Coors. Coors is good for me.”

“Coors it is then.” Zach’s voice was hesitant, as though he were debating asking what was wrong. “I’ll bring music, too, if that’s okay.”

Maddie pulled herself out of the past. Forcing strength into her voice, she said, “That’s a good idea. What was that violin music you were playing yesterday?”

“You liked that?”

“I did. And it seemed like great music to put Jesse to sleep. It just didn’t … ”

“Seem like something a roughneck would listen to?” Zach finished her unspoken thought. “I’m a man of unplumbed depths. Not many, I’ll grant you, but a few. It’s a good sign you like that fiddle player. Listening to Itzhak Perlman means you got class.”

“I think I’ve heard of him. Isn’t he a classical violinist. One of the famous ones?”

“That would be him.”

“I think referring to a classical violinist as a fiddle player might just cancel out any claim to class you get for listening to him.”

Zach laughed. “I think you might be right.”

“Since neither of us has any great claim to class, would it be okay if we ate supper at some unfashionable hour instead of waiting until seven? That’s just so close to Jesse’s bedtime.”

“You’re the cook. What time do you want to eat?”

“At least by six.”

“I’ll be there with bells on, darlin’.”

Chapter Seven

“Smells good in here.” Zach stood in the middle of the tiny space that passed for the kitchen in her one-room studio. His eyes closed and his head tilted back as though absorbing the smell of freshly cooked meatloaf. Zach broke the pose to swing the grocery bag onto the counter. He eyed her sideways. “And you look good enough to eat.”

Maddie felt herself blush. At the root of her embarrassment was the amount of time she’d spent dressing. She’d finally chosen a white summer dress with spaghetti straps and a full skirt. It would still have been too cold in Wyoming for the dress but the warm Texas weather made it all too easy to justify. “I thought it was meatloaf you wanted for dinner.”

Zach just smiled. He turned to load beer into the fridge. “You wanna beer?”

“That would be great.” Maddie looked over his shoulder. “God, I look like an alcoholic with two six packs in there.”

Zach pulled a long neck Lone Star out of the cardboard container for himself. “One who can’t even make up her mind what kinda beer she drinks.”

“Or doesn’t care.”

“You heard from Claudia yet?” Zach twisted the tops off both the beers and handed Maddie her Coors.

“Wow,” Maddie said. “Opened and everything. Just like downtown.” She took a sip. “She called a little while after you did. I start Monday.”

Zach found the trash under the sink and threw away the bottle caps. “That’s great. And I won’t even have to train you; you already know what I drink.” He reached one more time into the bag he’d just emptied of beer. Without comment, he laid her gun on the counter, as though it were something he’d thoughtfully picked up at the store for her.

A breakfast bar gave the illusion that the kitchen was separate from the rest of the room. It also restricted the space in the kitchen. Zach laid his hand on Maddie’s waist as he stepped around her, pausing for a moment to drop a casual kiss on her mouth.

Maddie’s heart skipped a beat. What did he think he was doing, acting like a boyfriend? She had to stop it. He was only here because he’d done something nice for her.

A big something nice, her conscience reminded her. And after she’d shot him, too.

Okay, so it was just a kiss.

If you’re going to start lying to yourself, telling yourself he’s only here as a thank you is a good way to do it.

Okay, so maybe some not-so-small part of her wanted him to finish what he’d started. Twice. But that was just sex. No commitment, no strings. It didn’t give him the right to kiss her like that.

“Hey, big guy!” Zach sat cross-legged on the floor beside Jesse. “What are we doing?”

Maddie realized she was starting to freak out. It wasn’t like he’d asked her to marry him. Zach had probably already forgotten about it. But it was the very casualness of the kiss that had gotten her started. She took a large swig of beer and turned back to the potatoes. Her eyes landed on the gun.
I suppose I could always shoot him again if he starts acting like he’s going to stay.
She put the gun on the top shelf of the cupboard to remove the immediate temptation.

“He really gets around, don’t he?” Zach said.

She looked over her shoulder. Jesse was scooting across the floor like a bullet train. She sighed. “Yeah. I can hardly wait until he’s walking,” she said in a dry voice. “He’s hard enough to keep up with now.”

Maddie let her mind go blank while she mashed the potatoes and made the gravy. She’d set the vintage sixties chrome dinner table an hour ago, so all that was left was to get the food on it. She asked Zach to put Jesse in his highchair as she brought out the meatloaf.

“Uh-oh,” Zach said when he picked Jesse up. “He’s wet.”

Maddie stopped with the potatoes in one hand and butter in the other. “If you can just lay him on the couch—”

“I can change him. Just point me at the diapers.”

“Are you sure?”

“Do I look like I can’t change a diaper?” he asked in an exasperated, almost offended tone.

“It’s a chore most men prefer to pass on.”

“You ain’t figured out yet that I ain’t ‘most men?’”

Most men he certainly isn’t.
With the butter dish in hand, Maddie pointed at a cupboard near the bathroom door.

By the time she put the rolls on the table, Zach was throwing Jesse’s wet diaper into the diaper pail in the bathroom. Maddie locked Jesse into his highchair while Zach washed his hands at the kitchen sink. Disposable diapers really were far easier then cloth diapers. Even so, Zach had changed Jesse with an efficiency that clearly demonstrated prior experience.

“Have you been married before?” Maddie asked.

“Nope.”

“Have kids?”

Zach raised an eyebrow at her as he pulled her chair out for her. Maddie hesitated a moment, suddenly aware of how much she missed being treated like a lady. Vince had done those little gentlemanly things, too.

“You obviously don’t know my mamma if you’d ask a question like that when I just said I ain’t never been married.” Zach said as he seated her.

“That’s sweet.”

“What’s sweet?”

“The way Texas men call their mothers ‘mamma.’ It sounds so affectionate.”

“Oh, I love my mamma. I just don’t cross her.”

“So what would happen if you got a girl pregnant?” Maddie had fed Jesse some strained carrots earlier, but she still dished up a small pile of mashed potatoes for him. What he wasn’t interested in eating, he’d enjoy playing with.

“I’d no longer be able to say I ain’t never been married.”

Maddie paused, startled. “I didn’t think anyone was still that old fashioned.”

“Like I said, you ain’t never met my mamma.” Zach dished three slices of meatloaf onto his plate. “When my brother Ezra knocked a girl up, Mamma didn’t ask if he loved her. And she didn’t care they were both only fifteen. The only thing that saved Ezra was the girl miscarried before Mamma got ‘em to the altar.”

“I’ll bet he straightened up after that,” Maddie said wryly, passing the potatoes to Zach.

“Mamma didn’t wait to see. He was too young for the military, so she shipped him off to Aunt Esther.”

“Did that work?”

Zach shrugged. “Jury’s still out on that, but at least he ain’t got no one else pregnant.”

As they filled their plates, Maddie noticed Zach’s hands. She knew from his touch that his palms were callused from the hard work he did on the rigs. Nearly healed scabs graced the knuckles of his right hand where he’d scraped the skin off, but, unlike the roughnecks she’d known in Wyoming, his hands were spotless. Men who worked the oil rigs had oil embedded in the skin so deep it took months to disappear. Most of them didn’t stay off the rigs that long.

“How do you get your hands so clean?”

Zach blushed. He scratched his brow, then ran his hand across mouth and chin. “Well, as Rach’s guest at the hotel,” he paused for several long heartbeats, “I sorta got spa privileges.”

Maddie tried not to smile, but her lips stretched on their own. “And that works?” She took a sip of beer, hoping he wouldn’t notice the smile behind the bottle.

“You spend a few days in the sauna, and you’ll sweat out every toxin your granddaddy ever got exposed to.”

“You earn points for that answer, you know.”

“I do?”

“I almost think you’re an honest man.”

“Cause I told you about the spa?” He paused in the middle of salting his potatoes.

“A lot of men wouldn’t have.”

He finished with the salt shaker and swapped it for the pepper. “If I coulda thought of a way out, I wouldn’t’ve either.”

“When will you be going back out?” With Jesse around to care for, Maddie had learned to split her attention. It was a form of multi-tasking she’d never found necessary before. She didn’t even realize she expected Zach to ignore the airplane sounds she was making to entice Jesse to try the potatoes until he didn’t answer her.

She blushed hot when she caught him watching her with unabashed amusement. “Sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it. I’ve done it myself. I won’t be going back to the rig ‘til next winter.”

Maddie’s heart sank. “Winter?” He wasn’t going to be around until then, was he?

“I only work the rigs when things are slow on the ranch.”

“Oh.”
A reprieve
. “Where’s your ranch?”

“It’s not my ranch. It’s the family ranch. It’s up by Jefferson.”

“So you’ll be going back to the ranch. How far away is Jefferson?”

“You looking to get rid of me?” Zach teased.

“No. Oh, no,” Maddie denied.

Zach grinned. “It’s close enough I can visit Galveston when I want.”

Jesse and his tray were potato speckled by the time supper was over. Zach carried the dishes to the kitchen while Maddie scoured Jesse clean. She left him playing on the floor with blocks she’d bought at the Salvation Army. The light from the lamp by the couch set his wet red hair on fire.

Maddie joined Zach in the cramped kitchen and started washing the dishes. He picked up a towel to dry each piece as she finished it. They worked around each other easily as she directed him to where each piece was stored. Maddie didn’t know why she didn’t just leave the dishes for the morning. If there was ever a reason to, Zach was certainly a good one. She’d waited all day for this part of the evening, but her gut was tense whenever she thought about what was sure to happen after she put Jesse to bed.

“Your sister said you’d been shot before?”

Zach groaned. “I was sorta hoping you’d forgot that.”

“Why?”

“Cause it’s embarrassing.”

“Tell me anyway.”

Zach sighed as he took a plate from her to dry. “It wasn’t nothing much. A classic buckshot wound.”

“Buckshot? As in a shotgun?”

“Yeah.”

Maddie stopped washing and twisted to stare at him until he crumbled and started the story. “My brother Gideon and me, we was stealing peaches offa Old Man Hazlett’s tree after dark.”

“I thought Rachel said you were the only one … ?”

“Gideon heard the screen door up on the porch squeak. He’s got rabbit genes somewhere. Practically knocked me over when he took off. Then I heard that pump action. No sound in the world quite like it.” He made a wry face. “Got a load of buckshot in my ass.”

Maddie tried not to laugh as she turned back to the sink, but it fizzed out of her.

Zach wrapped his arms around her waist and rested his chin on her shoulder, waiting for her to finish with the meatloaf pan. “That ain’t the worst of it. Mamma thinks astringent don’t work unless it stings.”

She could feel his erection against her butt cheek. He pressed harder against her. Maddie flicked soapy water into his face.

“Hey!”

Without even looking over her shoulder, Maddie passed the pan back to him. “Dishes first.”

“Slave driver,” he muttered.

When they were done, Zach moved to the couch while Maddie got Jesse ready for bed. She was conscious of him watching her, his eyes following every move she made. When she’d moved in, she had considered putting sheets up between the living area and the bed. She’d decided against it because she wanted to be able to see every corner of the place the second she walked through the door. And the thought of waking up in the night and wondering if someone was waiting on the other side of the sheets was too scary. The only concession to privacy was the screen she sometimes used to keep her bedside lamp from shining on Jesse’s crib.