Darn Good Cowboy Christmas (6 page)

She nodded. “And cats and dogs and cows.”

“Tell me the truth. You were raised on a ranch out in west Texas, weren't you?”

She looked up into his sexy blue eyes. “I was raised in a carnival. I tell fortunes and do some belly dancin' to bring in the crowd when Aunt Tressa or Momma is telling fortunes. We winter out near Claude, Texas, from the last of November until the first week March, and Poppa likes animals.”

He leaned forward and fell into the depths of her dark eyes. She moistened her upper lip with the tip of her tongue and his pulse raced.

It was a slow-motion experience. The closer his mouth got to hers, the hotter the liquid in the pits of her belly got. When his lips claimed hers in a hard kiss she kissed back with all the passion in her soul.

Dear
Lord, if he'd have kissed me like this when I was fourteen, I'd have never left Uncle Haskell's place
, she thought when he broke the kiss and took a step back.

“I been wantin' to do that for eleven years,” he said and walked away whistling.

She watched him mount up and gallop off like a cowboy in an old Western movie. When there wasn't even a dot on the horizon left, she reached up and touched her lips. They felt like they'd just sucked on a jalapeno pepper, but they were cool as a snowball.

Liz sat straight up in bed and slapped the alarm clock so hard that it bounced off the far bedroom wall and still kept buzzing. What was she thinking, telling Jasmine that she'd be at the café at six o'clock in the morning? Somewhere in the Good Book, there had to be a verse that said, “Thou shalt never see the pearly gates if thou riseth out of thy bed whilst it is still dark outside.”

She threw herself back on the pillows, but the alarm clock sounded even louder, pitching a buzzing hissy upside down on the hardwood floor. Finally, she threw off the covers and crossed the room, picked up the indestructible varmint, and pushed the off button. She trudged to the bathroom, flipped on the light, and covered her eyes with the back of her hand.

It was a cardinal sin to be awake at five o'clock, and a glance toward the mirror proved it. Liz's black hair looked like a whole nest of rats had had a hell of a party in it while she slept. She grabbed a brush and went to work, sweeping it up into a ponytail and twisting it into a sloppy bun. She slapped on barely enough makeup to be presentable in public and went back to the bedroom. Jasmine said jeans and a T-shirt was fine and that she provided aprons.

Her eyes were still half shut when she picked up her purse and keys from the kitchen table and stumbled out into the darkness. Hooter looked up from the corner of the porch with mournful eyes, and Blister ran to her empty food dish.

“Well, shit! I can't leave until I feed the livestock,” Liz grumbled as she went back inside the house.

She filled the food dishes and made sure there was fresh water and headed toward her pickup truck again.

“Good mornin',” Raylen said cheerfully as he hopped over the fence in a swift movement.

Liz glared at him. “It's five thirty in the morning. What is good about that?”

“Going to be a beautiful day. Sun will be rising in another hour. Thought I'd stop by and tell you good luck on your first day at work. I'm getting ready to plow that field right there.” He pointed toward the tractor sitting on the other side of the fence.

Too
damn
bad
Hooter
and
Blister
won't eat green stuff right off the land,
she thought.

“Thank you for the good luck,” she said.

He hurried to the truck and opened the door for her. “Have a good day.”

“How can you be so happy at this time of day?” she asked.

“I'm an early riser. Love the morning when things are just waking up,” he answered.

She brushed against him and the electricity between them woke her up so fast it made her head swim. So the fire in his kiss wasn't a one-time episode.

“See you later. Have a good day,” he said as he slammed her truck door shut.

***

Liz drove out to the end of the lane and turned north. It was a good thing he hadn't kissed her or she'd have been tempted to drag him back into the house for a romp in that big old soft bed. By the carnie Bible she was already sinning by getting up before the sun; she might as well go to hell for a big sin as a little one. She had a smile on her face when she opened the door to the café and found Jasmine in the kitchen.

“Hey, come on back here and get a cup of coffee. It'll be about ten or fifteen minutes before the crowd starts wandering in,” Jasmine yelled.

Liz followed the aroma of coffee blended with bacon and sausage through the dining room and into the kitchen. Jasmine pointed at the coffee machine and the cups stacked up beside it. Liz helped herself.

“Your breakfast and dinner comes with the job. So if you want a sausage biscuit, help yourself.” Jasmine pointed toward a plate with several already made up.

Liz picked up one. “I hate to cook. I may be your waitress until my dying day.”

A young woman, not as old as Liz, rushed through the door and into the dining room. She poured a cup of coffee, then added two heaping scoops of sugar and enough cream to turn it pale tan. Then she picked up a sausage biscuit and wolfed it down before grabbing another one.

While she nibbled at the second one, she dug in her jeans pocket and handed Liz a piece of paper. “I'm sorry. I was hungry and thought I was late. I'm Amber. I made a list of the way I do things to help you out. Before I leave in the evenings, I put out the breakfast menus and make sure the table is ready for the next day. That'd be full salt and pepper shakers, ketchup bottle, and pepper sauce. I get the coffee pots all ready so all we have to do is turn them on. Breakfast rush is from about six to eight thirty, and then there's a few drifters up to eleven when lunch starts. Then it's a madhouse until two.”

“Pleased to meet you, and thank you for the notes,” Liz said.

“I hate to leave. I've loved working here, but Momma is ailin' and I need to go home,” Amber said.

“Whatever brought you to Texas anyway?” Liz asked.

“Worthless sumbitch I met in a café up in Rogers, Arkansas. He was a truck driver and I was doin' waitress work. I'd just got out of a bad marriage and got right back into one even worse than the first one. Momma told me, but I wouldn't listen,” Amber said.

“I'm sorry,” Liz said.

“Me too. Could've saved myself a lot of pain and misery,” Amber said. “But that's all behind me now and I got a grip on life. I won't make the same mistake a third time, thanks to Lucy over at the Longhorn Inn. That woman is a saint, let me tell you. She gives talks at the shelters around here and finds jobs for those of us who need them. I've been livin' in the motel and helpin' her out some in the evenin's to pay for my room for the last six months. A saint, I tell you, and Jasmine here ain't far behind her.”

“I don't do nothin'. You worked for every dime you made here,” Jasmine said.

Amber had thin lips, but when she smiled her whole face lit up. “Yep, I did, and I learned more than how to fill up salt shakers. What's your story, Liz?”

“My Uncle Haskell gave me his house and twenty acres if I want it,” she said.

“Haskell Hanson? Love that old feller. Wondered why we hadn't seen him in the café the last week. Is he sickly?” Amber asked.

“No, but my grandpa is, so Uncle Haskell moved one of those prefab houses onto the property out in west Texas. He's going to take care of Grandpa.”

“That where you are from—out there in west Texas?” Amber asked.

Liz sipped her coffee. “No, I'm from all over the state, the lower half of Oklahoma, and even some of Arkansas. My mother and aunt own a carnival, so I grew up traveling.”

“Well, that sure sounds like fun.” She nodded toward the porch. “Looks like Slade Luckadeau and his grandma and aunt are our first customers today.”

Liz looked up to see two elderly women and a handsome cowboy coming through the doors.

“I'll get it,” she said.

“Okay, go get your feet wet, Miss Carnival.” Amber giggled.

“Good morning, folks. What can I get you this morning?” Liz asked as she whipped the strings of a white apron around her waist and tied them in the front.

“These two old grouchy women didn't want to cook this morning, so we're eating before we go to a farm auction down in Chico,” Slade said. He was a tall, blond, blue-eyed cowboy.

“Don't you be callin' us grouchy,” one of the women said. “You're the one who was bitchin' about gettin' up too damn early. I'm Ellen and this is my sister, Nellie, and that's her grandson, Slade. We have to keep an eye on him or he'll be buyin' nothing but culls. He's married to a woman who helps him buy good horse stock, but me and Nellie have to help him out with the cows.”

“Don't listen to them two. They're just grumblin' around,” Nellie said. “They're both so happy to be goin' somewhere today they could just dance a jig in a pig trough. I want the big breakfast, the one that comes on a platter with scrambled eggs, pancakes, sausage, and biscuits and gravy.” She was tall and slim, wore jeans and boots, and had gray hair cut in a short easy-to-take-care-of style.

“Me too,” Ellen said. “Only I don't give a shit about cholesterol so bring me two pieces of sausage.” She was shorter than her sister, had dyed hair swept up in a ratted hairdo popular in the seventies, and wore a sweeping, multicolored skirt with a bright orange ruffled top.

“Make mine with bacon instead of sausage,” Slade said.

Liz wrote everything down and carried the order to the kitchen. “That's one sexy cowboy out there.”

“Yep, if he wasn't married I'd be on the other side of this business flirtin' with him,” Jasmine said.

Liz leaned against the doorjamb and kept an eye out for more customers.

Jasmine went on. “I'm just teasing. I'm not getting involved with anyone for a while. I don't have good sense when it comes to the opposite sex.”

Amber nodded, her expression stone cold serious.

Liz cocked her head to one side and frowned.

Jasmine cracked eggs into a bowl. “But if I ever trust another man it's goin' to be someone like Slade. He's so in love with his wife, Jane, that he don't even see other women. I swear, Angelina Jolie could walk right up to him and whisper in his ear and it wouldn't affect him. Jane is his whole life. Well, Jane and those two little girls they have.”

“Is there any more Luckadeaus?” Liz asked.

“What would you be askin' that for? Raylen acted like he was almighty interested at Sunday dinner,” Jasmine said.

“No, he isn't,” Liz argued.

“Blush on your face says he is,” Jasmine said.

“More customers. Today, you take the orders and I'll deliver them and we'll split the tips,” Amber said.

“I'm in the learnin' stage. You keep the tips for your trip,” Liz said.

“You are a good woman. Jasmine, you keep her long as you can,” Amber said.

Liz took orders from the first table and turned around to see another group who'd pulled up chairs around the table next to the door. She made a quick trip to the kitchen and hurried back out.

“Just coffee for all of us,” a man said.

“Except I'll take a slice of whatever pie Jasmine has back there,” Becca said.

“Well, hello again.” Liz's tone was as flat as west Texas countryside.

“Hello to you. Don't matter what kind of pie it is. I had breakfast in the bunkhouse with the guys, but I'm wantin' something sweet.” Becca dismissed her with a wave of her hand.

Liz took the two orders to the back, filled four coffee cups and set them on a dark brown tray, picked up a slice of chocolate cream pie, and carried it out. Becca didn't say a word, not even “thank you” when Liz set the pie in front of her.

As she carried the tray back to the kitchen she met Amber coming out with an armload of orders.

“Watch that woman over there with all those men. She's downright mean. I don't like her. She treats me like dirt,” Amber said out the side of her mouth and kept walking.

“Why don't Amber like Becca, and why would she treat her like dirt?” Liz asked Jasmine as she waited for customers to arrive.

Jasmine cracked four eggs into a bowl and whipped them until they were frothy. “Becca comes from money. Her dad owns the biggest spread in the county over around Stoneburg. She's got an ego bigger than Dallas and pretty much gets what she wants.”

“I get the feeling she doesn't know what she wants,” Liz said.

“You've met her?”

“At lunch yesterday. Raylen introduced her.”

“I'll expect to hear more of that story when we aren't busy. She and Raylen are a strange pair, but they've been friends since they were babies. To my way of thinkin', she's got roundheelitis, but someday she expects to walk down the aisle with Raylen or Dewar. Her daddy don't really care which one,” Jasmine said.

“Roundheel-whatis?” Liz asked.

“Man winks at her and her round heels get off balance and she falls back on the bed and takes the man with her. It's a disease that antibiotics won't cure.” Jasmine laughed.

Liz laughed with her. “Sounds serious. Is it contagious?”

“I don't know. Don't plan on getting close enough to her to find out, but she'd better think again if she's going to hoodwink one of my friends into marriage,” Jasmine said.

“Got a deadline as to when she's going to do the hoodwinkin'?”

“Her daddy is putting the pressure on her, but she likes the chase too well to be tied down, and rumor has it she has the hots for the new foreman out on her daddy's ranch,” Jasmine said.

Liz took a long, steady look at the cowboy sitting beside Becca. Dark hair that hung down on his shirt collar. Even though it had an unkempt look about it, Liz knew a high-dollar haircut and the result of hair product when she saw it. Blaze had the same look about him, and his hair was his crowning glory.

The cowboy said something and Becca handed him her fork. He ate a few bites of her pie and pushed it back. She made a show out of licking the fork clean before she started eating with it. Her eyes were sparkling and her body language spelled love in all capital letters.

“Where is your mind?” Jasmine asked.

“Out in la-la land. More customers?”

“No yet, but I heard someone coming up on the porch,” Jasmine said.

“Hey Slade, what are you doin' out this early with such good-lookin' chicks? Does Jane know you're out cheatin' on her?” Ace yelled as he shut the door behind him.

“Don't you go tellin' on me,” Slade said.

Ellen, the shorter one, crooked a finger at Ace. “Come on over here and sit with us, darlin'. For that sweet lie, I'll buy you breakfast. If you'll let me drive that truck of yours, I'll buy you dinner, too.”

“Now Miz Ellen, I done heard how you drive too fast and drink too much. You are way too much of a party girl for me. Hey, Amber, bring me… you're not Amber,” Ace said. His eyes did a slow scan from Liz's toes to her hair.