Hot Cowboy Nights (13 page)

She had finished brushing her hair when someone knocked on the bathroom door. She slung it open to find Toby standing there, mud covering him from the hips down and splattered all over his shirt. He must’ve taken his boots off at the door because the only clean thing on him was a pair of snow-white socks that looked as out of place as a string of pearls around a sow’s neck.

“I believe I’m next in line,” he said.

“You look like you ought to be,” she agreed.

“Blake’s gone out to the trailer to get me some clean clothes. Don’t suppose you’d want to stay long enough to scrub my back for me, would you?”

Lizzy might have had a wonderful experience when she rose up from the bathwater, but it damn sure hadn’t set her free enough to do what Toby asked. She shook her head and smiled. “This is not a real relationship, darlin’.”

“I’d be willin’ to turn it into a real one for a good woman to give me a bath.” His eyes glittered.

She reached up and traced the scar on his cheek and then patted him on the chest. “I’d be willin’ to change it from fake to real for a few more nights in the back room at Mama’s store, but we agreed not to do that anymore, didn’t we?” She stepped around him, careful not to get too close to all that mud.

“We might change our minds.”

She looked back over her shoulder. “Not today.”

The wonderful smell of hot rolls baking in the oven filled the kitchen. And the sizzle of chicken frying in a big cast-iron skillet made Lizzy’s stomach start to grumble. The tacos she’d had that morning had long since been digested and there was no way a day-old greasy taco could measure up to Allie’s chicken even on a good day.

Lizzy leaned against the doorjamb and smiled. With one hand, Blake was stirring the green beans and the other was massaging Allie’s back. She’d seen him do those little endearing things for her for months now, but Lizzy never got tired of watching them together. It was those things that made a lasting marriage, not a few hot nights of sex, and she yearned for that kind of real, honest to god, relationship in her own life.

Blake laid the spoon to one side and moved over a step so that he was right behind Allie. He slipped his arms around her midsection and splayed his hands out over her rounded belly. When the baby kicked him, they both laughed.

“What can I do to help?” Lizzy asked.

Blake looked back over his shoulder. “I was about to set the table so you can come over here and help Allie. The potatoes are about done so they’ll need to be mashed. And the green beans need about five more minutes.”

It didn’t take Lizzy long to pad across the floor in her bare feet and pick up the wooden spoon. “Lord, that chicken smells good. I can use the same batter mix that you do and mine never comes out as good.”

“It’s all about the temperature of the grease. Too hot cooks the outside and leaves the inside either raw or tough. Not hot enough gives you a soggy crust instead of a crispy one. I talked to Fiona last night, and she said she’d walk up here barefoot and naked for a fried chicken dinner. I promised her one if she’d come home for the reunion thing on the Fourth,” Allie said.

“And is she bringing Paul? I can’t see that preppy guy walking from the bedroom to the bathroom in his bare feet,” Lizzy said.

“No, she said she’d come by herself if she can wrangle the time away at all,” Allie answered, and lowered her voice. “I’m kind of glad. We haven’t been around her husband very often but he makes me nervous.”

“Really? Why?”

“He’s got shifty eyes.”

Allie nodded. “I kinda got those vibes, too. I wonder if he’s faithful?”

“I hope so. Fiona might not live here but she’s got a temper. She’d kill him and the woman without batting an eye.”

“Goes with her red hair,” Lizzy said. “Potatoes are done.”

“Mixer is under the bar. Put a whole stick of real butter in them and use canned milk,” Allie said. “Another reason I want Fiona to come home is that this thing with the church has made Mama sad. I think all her girls together will help.”

“Fiona?” Toby said as he crossed the floor and poured himself a cup of coffee. “Is she definitely coming for the July Fourth homecoming?”

“Don’t know,” Lizzy said. “But we’re hoping so.”

“Hoping what?” Katy came through the kitchen door.

“That Fiona comes home for the hoop-la,” Allie said.

“I’m going to send her a plane ticket that is non-refundable or changeable,” Katy said. “It’s guilting her, but I really don’t care. I want to see her.”

With all three women working together and Blake setting the table, it wasn’t but a few minutes until they had sat down to eat. Lizzy noticed that Blake reached under the table and held Allie’s hand while he said grace and then leaned over and kissed her on the cheek when he finished. The ache in Lizzy’s soul deepened—surely there was a man somewhere out there that would love her like that, and after the festival she intended to start looking.

“So what’s the news on the war front about your daughter getting stuck in a gully with one of these Dawson cowboys?” Allie asked as she passed the platter of chicken to her mother.

“It’s not good.” Katy smiled. “Truman thinks I should shoot both Blake and Toby. Dora June is convinced that she’s made the right decision about the ladies’ club. But I don’t give a damn what any of them think. It’s not a bit of their business.”

“Hear! Hear!” Toby raised his tea glass.

“And how did your evening go, Mama?” Lizzy asked.

“Absolutely wonderful. We ate at this amazing little Italian place, went back to Trudy’s for coffee, and wound up talking until after midnight. The three of us have a friendship that endures time, separation, and life. We’ve been apart for years and years, but when we are together, it’s like we just saw each other yesterday. And to make the whole evening even better, I went by and saw Mama, and she was lucid,” Katy said. “Pass me those green beans. I sent them on without putting any on my plate.”

Lizzy picked up a chicken leg and bit into it. It was every bit as good as always, but as wonderful as it tasted, it didn’t compare to the fullness in her heart right then with her family around her. This was what she wanted and she was not settling for anything less.

O
n Monday morning, Toby restacked the feed sacks that had been shoved to the side so the last customer could get at the chicken scratch while he waited on the barbed wire and fence post deliveryman to arrive. It wouldn’t be long until all of these supplies would be moved back to the feed store, but for now, Toby was determined to keep things neat and in order. Blue chased a squirrel out the back door and trotted back with a smile on his face. Shooter glanced over at him as if telling him not to waste his energy on squirrels on a hot day like this.

“Good boy.” Toby patted his head. “I know you and Shooter will take good care of this barn and keep those pesky squirrels away from the feed sacks. I’m glad y’all are good friends. Dogs and cowboys, they need friends in this world.”

His phone buzzed and he fished it out of his shirt pocket. The text, from Lizzy, said that two different customers were on the way to pick up merchandise. The first one had paid for three rolls of barbed wire and twenty fence posts. The second one would be picking up chicken feed. She sent over copies of the sales so he would know exactly how much and what to let them have.

Three trucks rolled up at the same time and Blue scrambled to his feet to go welcome them. Something about the way he ambled outside, eager to make new friends, gave Toby an idea. Later, he would wonder what circular path had taken him from the dog going out to meet the visitors to the end of the road that put the smile on his face.

“There is more than one way to diffuse a bomb,” Toby said.

“Hey, Toby,” Wallace Jones said, waving. “I’m here for three bags of chicken scratch. Lizzy said she’d send you a message. I heard y’all got stuck in a ditch and had to spend the night out there.”

“It’s all the women in Dry Creek have talked about,” Lester Wilson said. “I swear they’ve talked it damn near to death. I heard that you had a devil of a time haulin’ your truck up out of the ditch. Is it going to be fixable?”

“It’s totaled for sure. The insurance company will come out and make the final decision but I’m not holding out a bit of hope,” Toby said. “I’ll help you load up the bags, Wallace, and then we’ll get to the barbed wire and posts, Lester. Looks like you’re going to have to wait until the delivery guy unloads to get your full order. Lots of folks puttin’ in new fence this time of year and stock got down low this week, but give this feller a few minutes and we’ll get you fixed right up.”

“No problem.” Lester sat down in a rusty old metal chair. “I heard that Henrietta wouldn’t help y’all because the way the church women has set their heels against Allie and Lizzy Logan bein’ in their club thing. Crazy old farts. Ain’t a one of them wearin’ halos.”

“Well”—Toby winked at Lester—“Henrietta said she wouldn’t make a phone call for us, but Blake and Allie showed up pretty quick after she left. Don’t go spreadin’ that around, because I wouldn’t want to get her in trouble with the ladies’ group. We were so happy that someone called Blake that we sure wouldn’t want to stir anything up. I hear that she and Irene Miller, Lizzy’s grandma, were real good friends back before Granny got dementia. Maybe she felt beholden to Lizzy because of that.”

Constant scraping noise combined with the loud music playing on the roof of the store made Lizzy nervous as a hooker in a church revival. Stormy curled around her four kittens in her new laundry basket bed behind the checkout counter as if she had no fears at all. Nothing bothered the cat, but then she’d carried her babies to safety in the midst of a hell of a storm. Shingles coming down off the roof and Conway Twitty singing so loud that the folks down at Nadine’s could hear it wouldn’t faze Stormy.

Lizzy was busy moving all the sales merchandise onto a smaller rack and marking them down to eighty percent off, when Dora June and Ruby pushed their way into the store. Up on the roof Conway was belting out “Goodbye Time.” Lizzy wished that she could wave at the two old gals and tell them good-bye without having to talk to them.

Rumors had covered the town worse than all that paper stuck to the trees, but Lizzy pasted on her best smile and pointed at the rack of sweatshirts, western shirts, and hoodies. “Y’all should take a look at this. It’ll go fast at this price.”

Ruby hitched up her jeans and sniffed the air dramatically. “We’re not here to shop.”

Had Stormy passed gas again? It sure looked like Ruby had smelled something horrible. Maybe the cat food caused flatulence. She made a mental note to check the effects of the stuff. It could be that, after a diet of mice and whatever she could scrounge up in the alleys, the cat couldn’t tolerate that high-dollar canned food.

“We’re here for a straight answer. Did Henrietta break her vow and make a phone call for you?” Dora June glared at Lizzy.

“What makes you think that she did?”

“We heard some news to that effect,” Ruby said.

“And if she did?”

Dora June crossed her arms over her chest and glared at Lizzy. “Then we will excommunicate her from the ladies’ group.”

“Shit. Whatever happened to spreading Christian kindness? We were stuck down there in a ditch. She showed up and we asked for help. Why would you treat your good friend like that? Y’all have all three been friends for years and were friends with my granny before her mind got bad. I can’t believe the way you are acting. Before long there won’t be enough women to make up a club. Come on, lay down your heavy burden of hate and stop this shit,” Lizzy said.

“Did Henrietta call Blake?” Dora June asked again, this time through clenched teeth.

“I was not in the car with Henrietta. What she did or did not do is between her and God and really not a damn bit of your business.” Lizzy picked up the black kitten and held it close to her chest. It stared up at her with bright blue eyes and purred when she started to pet it.

“I hate cats,” Ruby said.

“I love them,” Lizzy said coldly.

“That’s all you’re going to tell us about Henrietta?” Dora June snapped.

“That’s all I can tell you. If she was a Good Samaritan, I hope God puts an extra jewel in her crown. If she didn’t call, then that’s on her. If y’all want to throw her out of the ladies’ group, then tell her she’s welcome at Audrey’s on Wednesday nights for supper. That way she won’t be lonely while y’all are down at the church getting your weekly dose of self-righteousness.”

Dora June shook her finger at Lizzy. “You are an abomination unto the Lord.”

“Maybe so but I’ll talk to him tonight about it and we’ll work out my problems. I don’t need your help, but I did need Henrietta’s yesterday morning. And if she made a simple call, then I’ll be glad to thank her.” Lizzy put the kitten in the basket with the others. When she straightened up the women were on their way out the door and Blake Shelton’s voice singing, “I Still Got a Finger,” filtered down through the hole in the roof.

Lizzy shook her fanny to the beat of the music and held her hands above her head to keep from using her tallest finger to show Dora June and Ruby what she thought of them. After all, they had been her grandmother’s friends and she should respect that part of their past. Besides, there was hope that they would see the light at the end of the tunnel before the train hit them head on.

“This music is pretty dang good,” she told Stormy. “Nothing against Conway. He’s a king in my books, but I do love some Blake Shelton.”

When the song ended, she slipped out the back door and walked all the way to the other side of the alley so she could see what was going on up there on the roof. She was amazed at the sight. It looked like a whole crew of gangly monkeys crawling around on her roof. No wonder it was so noisy inside the store.

“What do you think?” Allie climbed down the ladder with a nail gun in her hand.

“I think you’ll have it done today at that rate. Where’d those kids come from?”

“Deke rounded up a dozen of them to help take care of this job and the one I’ve got lined up next,” Allie said.

“And that would be Herman’s new hay barn, right?”

Allie put the tool away in the back of her truck and pulled out another one. “Battery needs recharging. I’ll take it into the store and plug it up soon as I take this one up to Deke. And yes, it is Herman’s new barn. That’s all I’ve got on the docket right now so after that’s done I’m going to start on my own house. It needs painting on the outside and some wood replaced around a few windows.”

“I won’t worry so much about you since you’ve got help. Come on in the shop. Deke can run the crew and we’ll have a soda. You can play with the kittens and…” Lizzy paused.

“And what?” Allie eyed her.

“I need to talk and I’m scared.”

Allie yelled up from the bottom of the ladder. “Deke, send one of the boys down to get this. I’m going into the store for a little while.”

He gave her a thumbs-up sign and tapped a kid on the shoulder.

Allie looped her arm in Lizzy’s and together they tiptoed around the debris and twisted metal still lying everywhere between the alley and the store. “It looks like to me, if the tornado wanted to chew all this up, it could take it to a landfill somewhere and spit it out. Doesn’t seem fair that it tears it up and leaves it layin’ right here. Please tell me you haven’t been talking to Mitch and y’all are getting back together.”

“He’s married,” Lizzy said.

“No, he’s not. He will be over July Fourth weekend but not yet. He and that woman aren’t really married yet. Lucy told me that she won’t marry him until her daddy can perform the ceremony and her mama can be at the wedding. Mitch’s mama spread that rumor about him getting married so folks wouldn’t think he and that woman were living together.”

Lizzy went straight to her office, opened the refrigerator, and took out two cans of soda. She ran one over her forehead before she carried them to the counter where Allie sat on the floor with all four kittens in her lap.

“Are you sure?” Lizzy asked. “Which one is a rumor and which is truth?”

“I’m sure. Wanda couldn’t bear the idea of them living down there together in that villa, so she and Mitch cooked up the story that they were already married. The people in that area think that they were married when they arrived.” She jerked the tab off the top of the soda can and took a long drink. “But they’re really planning a ceremony with only family when they fly in for that weekend. Then Sunday the church is cooking up a reception and shower. In between, they will be here in Dry Creek for our festival.”

“A lie like that is starting off a ministry on a sour note if you ask me, which no one did, but Mitch isn’t even a blip on my radar anymore.” Lizzy touched her soda can to Allie’s in a toast. “May they be happy, wealthy, and in love all their married life.”

“Well, that’s real generous of you considering what he put you through. So if that’s not why you are scared, then what is? If it’s me on the roof, I’m not even big enough to be off balance yet, Lizzy. And I’m not stopping what I do because I love my work. I’d go crazy without it.”

Lizzy sat down in the floor beside the laundry basket and rubbed Stormy’s fur. “I worry about you but I understand. I wouldn’t know what to do with myself with this store.”

Why couldn’t God have shared the need to vent, to talk matter of the heart to death, to take hours to make a decision, and then change their minds with the male species? Why did he have to put the entire burden of all that upon the female gender? Add in the inability to get the words formed so they wouldn’t sound so silly with the absolute need to say them, and dammit, life was not fair.

“Spit it out,” Allie said.

“I really, really like Toby.”

There she’d said it, but she already wished she could cram the words back into her mouth. It didn’t bring a bit of relief.

“I know,” Allie said softly.

“How?”

“The way your eyes yearn for him when he’s anywhere around or when his name is mentioned. I did the same thing with Blake, but it’s not the same for you and Toby, Lizzy.”

“Why?”

Allie put the kittens back into the basket where they began to bite at anything that moved, whether it was their tails or their littermates. “I was a long time out of my relationship with Riley. Blake and I were pretty much on the same page about what we wanted in the long picture. He was wild but down deep he wanted to settle down. Toby is a player, plain and simple. It’s not that he won’t settle down with one woman. It’s more that he can’t.”

“Then you are saying a pretend relationship is the best I can hope for?”

Allie nodded. “Deke will settle before Toby. Do you see that ever happening?”

Lizzy opened her mouth to disagree but snapped it shut before she blurted out the whole story about the fling they’d had and the very real flirting that had gone on in the bathroom door the day before. Allie was right and Lizzy knew she should listen to her older sister for once.

“They’ll sell snow cones in hell before Deke quits his way of life. There’s not a woman alive who could drag him to the altar. Not even with a loaded shotgun.” Lizzy laughed and changed the subject. “The way those kids are working, the roof is going to be done by quittin’ time.”

Allie sipped at her soda. “And I’m willin’ to sit right here and let them finish it.”

“Hiring all that help sure cuts into your profit.” Lizzy tossed her empty can into the trash can. It made a loud clanging noise when it hit bottom, and all four kittens buried their little faces into their mama’s belly.

“Reminds me of three little girls who always hung on their mama’s apron strings when they were scared.” Lizzy laughed.

“Or their granny’s,” Allie agreed. “Maybe you’ve got three sisters and a brother in that basket.”

“Yep, Allie, Lizzy, Fiona, and Deke. I should name them that if there’s three girls and a boy. I never can tell if they are boys or girls. Check for me. You’ve always been good at that.”

Allie picked up each kitten and flipped it over on its belly. “You’ve got a boy here with this yellow one and here’s another boy and yep, all the yellow ones are boy kitties. Let me look at the black one.”

Fiona handed over the ball of fur and Allie turned it over. “A girl. Poor little thing will have to contend with three mean old brothers. Are you naming her Fiona?”