Kicks for a Sinner S3 (24 page)

“That position won’t do you any good. It makes you easy to bundle.” He scooped her up, leaving the bikini top behind, and after three strides, tossed her into the water. She floundered until she found her feet and splashed him in the face as she tried to escape back to her nice, warm rock. He caught her in retreat by hooking a thumb into her brief swimsuit bottom and towing her out to deeper water. Once he reached waist-high, he simply divested her of the rest of the bikini and lobbed it ashore.

“No fair! No fair! You still have your trunks on. Oh, cold, cold, cold. The bottom is all gooey.”

“That’s only mud, darlin’, not cow slobber.” He raised one knee, then the other, showed her his discarded swim trunks and threw them after her bikini. “Now we’re even.”

“Still freezing.”

“You need to move around to get warm. Like this.” He executed a prefect surface dive, his buttocks jutting up, his long legs following them beneath the water. When he came up, Cassie was laughing.

“Hey, I thought I did that pretty well.”

“Not your dive. Howdy, you have the whitest ass I’ve ever seen.”

He shook a finger at her. “We do not say ass in this family.”

“I can’t believe you’re mocking Nell.”

“Actually, I’m imitating my grandmother. I have the greatest urge to run inside the house and drop a quarter in the cuss jar. After she passed away, Grandpa and I had to go from using a quart container to a gallon size. We gave it all to the church in her memory once we filled it up.”

Cassie moved into the deeper water where he stood. “I guess you’re kind of religious. I noticed the Bible on the nightstand last evening. It made me almost too guilty to seduce you.”

“Glad you didn’t let the word of the Lord deter you. Nope, not as religious as I should be. That was Grandma’s Bible. Grandpa kept it on that table near him at night as a comfort. He rarely opened it. Neither do I, but still it is good knowing we had something she cherished. In fact, I never got dunked into the Baptist Church as she died around the time I was supposed to seek salvation. Unlike you.” He reached beneath the surface and up-ended her.

Sputtering to the top, she splashed him again making a wave with her arm as she spun around. “To think I almost asked you to warm me up.”

“Happy to do that, ma’am.” He brought her tight against his chest and lowered his head for a deep kiss. Her hands slipped to clutch his buttocks, pale-skinned but firm from kicking all those field goals.

“Hmmm,” she said when they came up for air. “I expected a little more action down below.”

“Like you said, it’s cold in here. You want action we need to take this elsewhere.”

Howdy lifted her into his arms and carried her from the lake. He paused to slip on a pair of lime green flip-flops left at the water’s edge. Cassie stared down at them and giggled at the squishing noise they made as he strode along.

“Somehow your footwear makes this less romantic.”

“As you pointed out, we are sharing this spot with cattle. Believe me, if I have to stop to wash my feet of cow plop, all the romance truly will be gone.”

She conceded that point and gave him an extra one for getting her all the way back to the house without putting her down once. They wound up on the old-fashioned double bed with the white iron headboard and the worn log cabin quilt spread. Cassie reached over Howdy, her naked breasts brushing his chest, and placed the Bible into the night table drawer.

“There, now I can concentrate on you. I see we have liftoff.”

“Care to ride a rocket to the moon, darlin’?”

She did. The ride lasted a long, long time with Cassie at the controls. The landing came off perfectly. After a period of exploration, they were ready to blast-off for home with Howdy in charge.

“Warm enough now?”

“Yes.” She nodded against his chest. “Howdy, I do not deserve you.”

“Huh?”

“I insulted you, was mean to you, kept you at arm’s length as my friend for the longest time. I have a smart mouth and too dirty a past for a nice guy like you.”

“What brought that on?”

“The Bible in the drawer.”

“Didn’t bother you enough to quit last night.”

“But now it’s broad daylight. Forgive me for the way I treated you.”

“Hey, that’s one thing I recall from my Baptist upbringing. I’m big on forgiveness. As for your past, seems to me most of the dirt that rubbed off on you came from Bijou. Time to wash that away and forget it about, Cassie.”

She hugged him tight. “I really, truly do not deserve you. I want to do something wonderful for you.”

“Sweetheart, I think you already did,” he answered, groggy from cold water swimming and very hot lovemaking.

“Something better than sex.”

“Nothing is better than sex,” he murmured on the edge of sleep.

“Shades of Joe Dean.”

Howdy’s blue eyes opened to two narrow slits. “Don’t be bringing him into our bedroom.”

“Sorry. Forgive me again. How about I find your parents for you? Then, you won’t be alone.”

He nuzzled her neck. “I’m not alone now, Cassie. Just let it be.”

But, being Cassie, she could not do that.

TWENTY-FIVE

Cassie sat in the bed with the log cabin quilt tucked under her arms, her naked breasts covered. They hadn’t left the bedroom much after their swim, only long enough to rustle up some dinner and watch a DVD of
The Quiet Man
from the complete John Wayne collection housed on the shelves beneath the huge flat screen TV that didn’t quite fit the modest, comfortable living room. The TV and the collection were gifts to his grandpa from Howdy’s signing bonus. The old man hadn’t gotten to use them for very long. Pushing that sorrow aside, they laughed at the comic fight at the end of the movie and acted out the struggle between John and Maureen O’Hara on their way back to bed which turned out to be a real turn on. She feigned reluctance. He played the dominant part. Good time had by all.

Howdy had been correct in calling his place small. The white frame house possessed only two bedrooms, one old-fashioned bath, a large kitchen, and the living room paneled in knotty pine and decorated in plaid. A generous porch overlooking the lake added a little more space for relaxing in rocking chairs. A barn with a corral sat far enough away to keep the flies from being a problem. An old, unoccupied bunkhouse leaned drunkenly on the other side of house distant enough for privacy. Instead of a windmill or an oil well, a homemade football goal stood out against the sky.

These and a few other outbuildings made up the spread called the Bar Mack after its brand, McC over a straight line. Howdy had given the caretaker, Emilio, the man who had helped him learn his Spanish, the week off. The man’s wife had cleaned the house before their arrival, so they had the place pretty much to themselves except for the inquisitive cattle.

Pots and pans banged in the kitchen. The rich smell of perking coffee wafted back to the bedroom. She’d wanted to help with breakfast, but Howdy insisted she stay beneath the covers. The only trouble, now she was wide awake with nothing to do after a dash to the bathroom and a quick brush of the hair and application of makeup. She opened the nightstand drawer and took out the Bible, a King James Version with a cheap leatherette cover and the name Ruth Weems McCoy embossed in nearly vanished gold. Cassie found what she looked for between the Old and New Testaments, a page to record marriages, births, and deaths very sparsely written upon.

The first entry showed the marriage date of Ruth Weems and Howard Angus McCoy in 1947 with their birth dates in the late 1920’s also noted. Ruth had inscribed only two births, her daughter’s and Howdy’s: Mary Mariah McCoy in 1967, a late in life only child, and Howard Angus McCoy II, born 1988. No other marriages helped fill the page. The name that made her eyes widen sat right above Howdy’s birth date, Benito Rizzo, father, no other information given. The bedroom door bumped open. She slipped the Bible under the covers.

Holding a white wicker bed tray, Howdy backed into the room and turned to present her with breakfast. A small cast iron skillet sat on a hot pad in the center of the tray. Two forks, two spoons, thick, white mugs of coffee and an equally utilitarian cream and sugar set flanked it. Upright bottles of ketchup and hot sauce added some color, but the touch that brought tears to her eyes was a vase crudely and joyfully decorated by a child and holding a few of the small sunflowers that popped up all over the ranch.

“I really don’t deserve this.”

“Well, it’s the house special. See, you fry the potatoes in the skillet first, then dump eggs on top and after they cook, add grated cheese. I put jalapenos on my side, but I wasn’t sure if you’d like that.” Howdy noticed her watery eyes. “If you don’t want this, we have cereal. Or I can get you a plate. Grandpa and I usually shared right out of the pan. It saved on dishwashing, but I can see how you might not like that. We got the fancy bed tray when Grandma was sick, but there’s not a lot of room on top of it.”

“No, I love all of it. I don’t think I’ve ever had breakfast in bed before. I was always up helping Mom make it for the younger kids. When we were on the road, mostly we had fast food breakfasts in the morning. Did you make the vase?”

“Yeah, a cub scout Mother’s Day project. Grandma said she liked it more than all the crystal in Waterford.”

“I think I do, too. Let’s eat. I am starving.” The quilt slipped down as she reached for her fork. Howdy drew it up again. Fully clothed in jeans and another of the endless blue shirts, he sat down next to her.

“What, no topless eating in this house?”

“I don’t want you to burn your bosom because that would be a real sin.”

He upended the ketchup, put a dollop in the middle of his eggs, added hot sauce, and dug into the house special. Cassie did her best to eat a respectable portion, but he’d made a farmhand’s breakfast, too much for any young woman watching her weight. She left the rest to Howdy and slowly sipped her coffee, strong but not bad with a little sugar added.

“Howdy, I thought you didn’t know who your father was.” She withdrew the Bible from beneath the covers. “It says here he’s Benito Rizzo. Haven’t you ever tried to find him?”

“I wouldn’t put much stock in that. Grandma didn’t. She told me when she pressed my mother for a name she said, ‘then put down Benito Rizzo.’ Could be made up for all I know. My birth certificate doesn’t list a father. I sure don’t look I-talian. No, I take after my grandpa. Everyone says so. My mom named me after him.”

Cassie snickered. “Yes, Howard Angus McCoy the Second. Angus, really?”

“‘A venerable Scottish name,’ Grandpa said. He got that from
his
grandfather. See, I have family way back. It’s not like I’m adopted. Sorry, I’m not putting down what you did with Tommy. It’s great you keep in touch and he knows all the Thomases. Enough about me. Confess your middle name.”

“Grace, Cassie Grace Thomas,” she said smugly.

“As pretty as you are.”

“See, you don’t even retaliate when I make fun of you. No, that’s not true. You did make me feel about an inch small when I bitched about not riding with Joe and Tommy. I deserved the put down, and I did feel your pain about your abandonment. That’s why I think we should track down your parents and get the real story. Do you think your mom is still in Vegas? How far are we from there? We could leave this afternoon.”

“Not what I had planned for us today.” Deliberately, Howdy set the bed tray aside, peeled off his clothes and got under the covers with her. “I figured on a short ride inside and a long one outside with a picnic lunch.”

His hands started working on her beneath the quilt. “Better put that Bible away before you start feeling guilty again.”

She placed it back in the drawer, but didn’t forget about the entries, not during the morning sex, not during the long horseback ride around the spread where Howdy pointed out the small orchard with peach and apple trees bearing tiny green fruits barely emerged from the blossoms.

“Grandma made the best pies and preserves from the fruit. After her death, we stretched that last jar of her peach jelly out for weeks because we knew there wouldn’t be any more. After that, we only ate the fruit and gave lots of it away.”

“Still, a wonderful way to remember her. How did she die?”

“Cancer got her.”

For a minute, Cassie envisioned Ruth McCoy dying in the bed where they’d made love only hours ago. Made her feel guiltier than the Baptist Bible. “Did she die at home?”

“No, she passed at the hospice. In case it grosses you out, she had a hospital bed at home. Mine is a single bed, so we had to use Grandpa’s, right? The sheets are new even if the quilt is old, and Grandpa had his heart attack in the barn in case you’re wondering.”

“I love the quilt—and the bed and what we do in it.”

“Good, because I’m not getting rid of them or you.”

They rounded the lake on the two horses remaining on the ranch, a wide-rumped Appaloosa mare named Dolly, mostly white but freckled all over with brown spots the size of dimes, and her offspring, a gelding called Mad Son, bay in front and blanketed with white in the rear. No one would call either mount terribly youthful.

“I don’t know why you call him Mad Son. He’s a docile as can be,” Cassie remarked.

“Oh, I got to name him. We were studying American history in the third grade when he came into the world. I wanted to show off my knowledge and said Madison went with Dolly, only I didn’t get the spelling or the pronunciation right. Grandpa thought that was such a hoot he wouldn’t change it for the world.”

They came to a fairly new fence line and Howdy pointed out how the Bar Mack once spread out for miles. “Grandpa sold it off to pay the medical bills and get me through college in case my kicking didn’t pay off. He only kept a few cows to produce steers for table beef after that, the ones you saw across the lake. And he kept the water rights. You never give up water rights.”

“I’ve always thought of Oklahoma as being dry and dusty.”

“Not down here near the Red River. The McCoys knew a choice piece of land when they saw it. The Indians got sent to the dry and dusty part, the part with oil on it as it turned out. I want to put up a new place here someday, but I’ll keep the old house for guests. It gave me shelter for a long, long time when I needed it.”