How to Marry a Cowboy (Cowboys & Brides) (11 page)

“No one insulted you. You insulted Annie Rose,” Doc said.

“I’m going home and you are coming with me, Frank.”

Frank shrugged. “Sorry about all this. You know how she is.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Annie Rose said. “But you two…” Her eyes went to Lily and Gabby.

“He threw the first punch,” Kenna said quickly. “Grandpa, you always told me that I can’t start a fight, but if someone else does then I can whip the shit out of them.”

Doc pushed his glasses back up on his nose. “Guess I did say them exact words, but you aren’t supposed to repeat what I say, Kenna.”

“He hit Kenna and we had to help her,” Lily said.

“And then he kicked Lily and said she was a slut too. What is a slut, Mama-Nanny?” Gabby asked. “Is that like a hooker?”

“Yes, it is,” Annie Rose answered.

“Well, then I’m not sorry. If I get punished then it’ll be worth every bit of it. He’s a lyin’ little sumbitch. I’m not a hooker. I’m a country star,” Lily said stoically.

“Let’s go have some dinner, and there will be no more fighting today. If someone says something you don’t like, you come tell me,” Mason said. Holly would like it that Annie Rose laughed about the whole thing and made Dinah so mad that she left. Holly never did like that woman.

“Yes, ma’am. I’m sorry I cussed. Now I’m hungry. Come on, Kenna, let’s go get some ribs,” Lily said.

Off they went. Three little girls with hair ribbons all tangled up in their hair, dresses wrinkled, and grass stains on their elbows and knees.

Doc Emerson patted Annie Rose on the shoulder. “Don’t worry about it, honey. If the Harper kids and my granddaughter don’t get into trouble at least once at any gathering, the folks would think the kids were terminally ill. Have you begun remembering how and why you got on that porch last week?”

“Yes, sir. Most of it is clear as a bell now,” she said.

“That’s good.”

He ambled off toward the food tables, leaving Annie Rose and Mason alone under the shade tree with a rumpled quilt at their feet.

“Why did you laugh?” Mason asked.

“It was funny as hell,” she whispered. “I’ve never had anyone take up for my honor like that before.”

“It’s my biggest fear that one of the girls will grow up and date him. I probably should go on and wring his neck now. Save everyone a lot of trouble,” Mason growled.

“He was only repeating what he heard,” Annie Rose said.

“His mama’s sorry neck should be wrung too,” Mason said as he tucked her small hand into his.

“My mama said the more you stir a pile of cow shit, the worse it smells. I knew Dinah wasn’t going to be my friend from the first time she talked to me, so it’s no big loss. It’s her privilege to say or think whatever she wants. It’s mine to ignore her. But I do like Natalie. Now let’s go have some dinner. If we don’t hurry, those three girls are liable to eat all the ribs.”

Annie Rose was so proud of her girls that morning that her heart swelled with pride. They didn’t do anything spectacular, like sing for the whole church, but Lily and Gabby were good. They sat there like little angels, one on either side of Annie Rose through the whole service. Their singing was lovely. They bowed their heads for prayers and didn’t even fidget. They listened to the sermon, which was more than Annie Rose did. She was almighty glad that a child separated her from Mason. If she was plastered up against Mason, keeping her X-rated thoughts from setting the church on fire would have been impossible.

Mason’s eyes never left the podium, but he stretched, slung his arm around Gabby, and his fingertips brushed against Annie Rose’s bare arm. She wished again for one of those old-fashioned cardboard fans. The air-conditioning in the church couldn’t keep up with the heat flowing from his hand through her body.

The preacher finally wound down his sermon. From the bits and pieces that Annie Rose caught in her futile attempt to keep her eyes and mind off Mason, she thought that he’d sermonized about not casting stones at glass houses. She wondered if Dinah had a big rock in her fancy purse, hoping for the opportunity to throw it at Annie Rose.

The closing amen was finally said. The noise level in the little country church went from an occasional muffled cough to rock-concert loud in seconds. The girls skipped off to talk to Kenna. Annie Rose quickly scanned the church to see exactly where Damian was. She breathed a sigh of relief when she finally located him leaving with his parents.

Mason introduced her to the few people she hadn’t met either at the birthday party or the ranch party the day before. She smiled, shook hands, greeted each one, and still kept one wary eye on those three girls over beside the piano. The glitter in their eyes when they came running with Kenna in the lead said they were planning something.

“Daddy, please, please can we go home with Kenna? Doc says it’s all right with him and Miz Doc and we need to go practice our band stuff and…”

Gabby picked up when Lily stopped to catch her breath. “And Doc says he’ll take us to the Pizza Hut to eat, and we can play and sing after that.”

Doc Emerson laid a hand on Mason’s shoulder. “We’d love to have the twins for the rest of the day. Kenna gets lonely with us old far…” He chuckled and didn’t finish the word. “We’ll have them home in time for bed. I thought we’d take them to that new Disney movie playing up in Sherman after they get their band practice done. It’s a late-afternoon matinee, and afterwards we’ll have a KFC picnic at the park.”

“If you are sure,” Mason said.

“I’ve got your cell phone number if there’s a problem, and I
am
a doctor.” He chuckled again.

Mason clapped a hand on his shoulder. “I trust you, Doc. But after an afternoon with all three of those girls, you might need to call a doctor for yourself.”

“If it gets too bad, I’ll take a nap and trust the wife to hold down the fort,” Doc said.

Kenna grabbed Lily’s hand with her right one and Gabby’s with her left and off they went in a run down the aisle next to the wall. After only a week, Annie Rose could read their little minds. If they could get to Doc’s van and close the doors, then the adults wouldn’t change their minds.

Then it hit her!

She and Mason would be alone for the whole afternoon and evening.

***

Mason picked up Annie Rose’s hand and looped it through his crooked arm. “Guess that means we get to have dinner wherever we want and not at McDonald’s today. What’s your fancy?”

“We could go home and I could cook,” she said.

He took a couple of steps forward, following the crowd toward the door where the preacher shook hands with everyone as they left. “I love your cooking, but the Bible says that I’m supposed to take you out to dinner on Sunday.”

Annie Rose’s big blue eyes locked with his and he felt as if he was drowning. “I’m racking my brain to remember a verse that says you should take me out for Sunday dinner.”

“Blessed are they who hunger and thirst after righteousness,” he quipped. “You’ve been to church and I know you are hungry.”

“But the blessing should be for the hunger and thirst, not for fried catfish,” she said.

“All a matter of interpretation. So catfish, huh?” he asked.

“I was making a statement.”

“I like catfish and I know a good place to get it in Denison. Ever heard of Huck’s?”

“As in Finn?” she asked.

“Yes, ma’am. Sound good?”

“Do we eat it floating down the river on a raft?” she asked.

He patted her hand. It was smaller than Holly’s had been, but then Holly had been a tall woman, a basketball player in high school and college and she’d been—he bit the inside of his lip and shook his head. He should not compare Annie Rose and Holly… they were two entirely different women.

“What about a raft?” he asked.

“Can we eat catfish while floating down the Red River on a raft?” she asked.

“No, but we can eat the catfish first and then we’ll float down the river. I’ve got a couple of big tractor-sized inner tubes. Sun is out, and it’s plenty hot,” he said.

“I didn’t bring a bathing suit, but it is tempting. I haven’t done that in years.”

“That’s no excuse.” He hadn’t seen a woman blush that crimson in years and years. “I don’t think there’s a biblical blessing for skinny-dippin’ thoughts, but it sure puts a pretty picture inside my head, especially if we share an inner tube.”

“I was not… well, shit! It’s not right to lie in church, and we aren’t outside yet. I was thinking about skinny-dippin’ since I don’t own a bathing suit, and now you made me use a bad word too.”

He leaned down and whispered in her ear, “And I bet you didn’t listen to the whole sermon either, did you?”

She shook her head. “Did you?”

He grinned. “No, ma’am. My mind was on you.”

***

Just exactly how erotic and exciting had he let his wanderings go? She’d bet that her imagination had been a hell of a lot hotter than his had been. There was no way she looked better than he did in those creased jeans, that crisp plaid shirt, and those polished boots.

“Did you think about a certain hayloft?” he asked.

“Did you?” she asked.

“Guilty as charged.”

“I’d love to float down the river on inner tubes if you’ll let me have ten minutes to find a bathing suit,” she said, trying to banish all crazy thoughts of skinny-dippin’ from her mind.

“Make it the darkest one in the store, and you’ve got it,” he said.

“Why the darkest one in the store? Maybe I want a pure white one.”

“You’ll understand when you see the Red River. It’s not a pretty little bubbling stream of clear water. And pick up a gallon of sunblock while you are in the store, because your fair skin won’t take the afternoon heat.”

Before she could answer, they’d made it to the church doors and the preacher stuck out his hand. “Good mornin’, Miz Annie Rose. We met at the picnic yesterday. I’m Lucas’s grandpa. I don’t usually preach at this church, but the minister wanted to take his family on a vacation, so I volunteered to help out.”

She pulled her arm free from Mason’s arm and shook hands with him. “It was a lovely picnic.”

“Yes, it was. Did you meet my great-grandson, Josh? He’s the king of the ranch.”

Mason reached for the preacher’s hand when he dropped Annie Rose’s. “Yes, he is, Henry. But when those twin girls come along, he’ll have some competition.”

Henry’s smile erased a multitude of wrinkles. “We’ll spoil them all when they get here. We’re hopin’ for a dozen or more, but don’t tell Natalie. We’re workin’ on easin’ her into the idea.”

Mason let the next people in line move up to shake hands with Henry and he ushered Annie Rose outside with a hand on the small of her back. He opened the truck door for her, reached across her lap and fastened the seat belt, brushed a quick kiss on the tip of her nose, and whistled all the way around the front to the driver’s side.

Floating down the river might not be a real, official, honest-to-God date, but it sure felt like something more than a way to pass off an afternoon with no girls underfoot.

“We’ll go to the house first. I’ll load up the inner tubes and grab a few things. Then we’ll go to Huck’s for the best catfish you’ve ever eaten.” He talked as he backed the truck out of the church parking lot and headed south toward Whitewright. A picture of her in a bathing suit of any kind flashed through his mind and put a big grin on his face.

“And then I can buy a bathing suit and a gallon of sunblock, right?” she asked.

His quick scan up and down her body sent shivers from hair to toenails.

“Maybe only a little bitty bikini and only a small tube of sunblock, then it will take longer for me to smooth it out over all that pretty white skin.” His drawl was just shy of seductive.

“Is that one of your pickup lines?”

“Never know. It might be my best one ever if it’s working.”

“We’ll see after you put the sunblock on my back,” she teased.

Annie Rose stopped in the foyer and wrapped her arms around herself. The chill had nothing to do with the air-conditioning vent right above her and everything to do with the doubts flooding through her mind. What in the hell did she think she was doing? She should ask Mason to drive her to the nearest car dealership, buy the oldest model on the lot, and leave while the girls were away. Leaving without saying good-bye would be the coward’s way out, but a good clean cut would be best for everyone.

He took the steps two at a time, calling out over his shoulder that he’d have his things thrown into a bag and be back in five minutes. She went straight for her quarters, crammed what would fit into her suitcase, and left the rest in the closet. Money, driver’s license, insurance verification on a vehicle that was sitting at the bottom of a pond, and enough clothing to get her to the next stop—that’s all a woman on the run needed.

She’d checked the weather that morning on the television before they’d left for church, but she’d forgotten to turn it off in her haste to get the girls’ hair all done. The picture now filling the screen stopped her dead in her tracks. There was Nicky at his finest, all tanned, a brilliant smile showing perfectly even white teeth, dark hair brushed back, and brown eyes as evil as they’d always been.

She quickly turned up the volume. Hopefully, he was announcing his engagement to the woman that he’d come to see at the bridal fair.

“In a tragic accident this morning, Nicholas Trahan, his girlfriend, Candy James, and two other unnamed people were killed in a plane crash. Trahan was flying from the Texas Panhandle to southern Louisiana when his plane crashed into a field in Beaumont, Texas. All four people in the plane were pronounced dead at the scene. Names of the other couple have been held pending notification of relatives.”

Annie Rose listened to the news on two different stations before Mason rapped lightly on the door.

“Hey, are you about ready?”

“Give me one more minute.” Her voice sounded strange and tense even in her own ears.

She shoved the suitcase back into the closet and opened the door to find him right outside, his face not six inches from hers. He laid his hands on her shoulders and pulled her close to his chest.

“My God, Annie Rose. Are you okay? You look like you saw a ghost.”

“I did. I’ll tell you about it on the way to the restaurant,” she said.

His arm around her shoulder as they left the house was all that kept her upright. The world seemed to be listing off to the left about fifteen to twenty degrees.

“Okay, now about this ghost,” Mason said when he was buckled into his seat.

“Nicky Trahan was killed this morning in a plane crash down by Beaumont,” she said. “I saw it on the news.”

“So your troubles are over, right?” Mason started the engine and drove down the lane toward the road. “Want me to haul your car up out of the pond now?”

She shook her head. “No, I can’t believe that it’s over and that I don’t have to run anymore. I can live a normal life without looking over my shoulder.”

Mason reached across the console and laced his fingers in hers. “Yes, you can. Please don’t tell me you’re leaving. The girls love you, and I want you to stay.”

She could go anywhere, even back to Beaumont to work as a nurse again, but the thought of leaving Lily and Gabby put a lump in her throat that she couldn’t swallow down. She’d been crazy to think that she could pick up her suitcase, buy a used car, and drive away, never to see those two little faces again.

“Of course, I’ll stay until June is over. I gave my word for a month at a time,” she said.

“Your color is coming back. A catfish dinner and a long float down the river will be good for you.”

She snapped her fingers. “Just like that, it’s over. It’s surreal.”

He squeezed her hand. “Understandable. Tell me again how long ago that you disappeared.”

“Two years.”

“It’ll take a while to get the jumpiness out of your body, but one day you’ll wake up and it’ll all be gone.”

“How do you know?”

The smile was forced, but he got credit for trying. “Today is not a good time to talk about that.”

“Why? We’re talking about Nicky. Let’s hang everything out on the clothesline.”

He chuckled. “That sounded so much like my grandmother that it’s not even funny.”

“It was one of my mother’s favorite sayings. We’d hang out whatever was bugging us on the virtual clothesline and then we’d forget it. Mama was in her forties when she and Daddy adopted me, so it was like being raised by grandparents.”

“Little old to be taking on raisin’ a kid,” he said.

She nodded slowly. “The story Mama told me when I got old enough to ask was that her cousin in Lafayette knew a teenage girl who’d gotten pregnant. Boyfriend had joined the Army and was coming home to marry her, but he was killed. The girl decided to give the baby up for adoption, and Mama’s cousin convinced her to let Mama and Daddy have me. So they paid the hospital bills and the teenager signed over her rights to them with the understanding that someday, when she was ready, she could come see me. Later, when I was about five years old, they got word that she had joined the Army and was killed in Iraq. And I’m rambling again.”