The Counterfeit Cowgirl (23 page)

“You didn’t tell me about any lunch with an IRS auditor.” Deborah glared at him.

“I probably didn’t,” Tony said in dry tones. “I knew it would upset you. But I know I told you the business was being audited. The auditor was a woman, and I took her to lunch one day to continue discussing some deductions they were questioning.”

“But — ” Deborah clearly didn’t believe this.

“Everything’s fine now.” Tony made a gesture of finality. “The IRS is satisfied and all questions are resolved. Are you trying to tell me you walked out on me because you thought I was seeing the IRS auditor on the side?”

“I didn’t know she was an IRS auditor,” Deborah said defensively. “All I know is that she was pretty, and after you’d yelled at me, what else could I think but that you were bored with me?”

“I’ll never get bored with you,” Tony said. “You’re my wife, the mother of my children. And if you thought I was yelling at you, you should have yelled back.”

“True,” Felicity said, when it became clear Deborah didn’t know what to say. “Just because a person yells doesn’t mean he’s going to hit you or leave you. Look at Aaron. He sounds like a raging lion at times, but he’s actually a male cardinal. There’s nothing sweeter than a male cardinal.”

Aaron grinned and said nothing. The two little boys ignored their parents and watched Becky in fascinated silence.

“You should know by now that I’d never hurt you, Deb. I’m not your father.” Tony concentrated on his wife. “Did it occur to you to wonder
why
I might have been upset enough to yell at you?”

“No … ” Deborah began to look ashamed.

“I was worried about the business,” Tony said. “The IRS was auditing us and business had slowed down. For a while there, things looked bad, and here you come wanting to throw money away redecorating a perfectly good living room.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Deborah said. “Don’t you think I’m capable of understanding?”

Tony frowned. “I didn’t want to worry you. Besides, we pulled through and the audit is over. Everything’s fine now. With the business, that is.”

Deborah sat staring at her husband in silence.

“That’s no way to conduct a marriage,” Felicity pointed out. “Tony, you’re going to have to talk to Deborah about what’s going on in your business. How’s she supposed to know you’re just letting off steam if she doesn’t know there’s anything wrong?” She smiled kindly at Deborah. “And you’re going to have to give Tony time to apologize before you go running home to Aaron. It’s only fair. You never gave him a chance to apologize or to explain things.” She added, “You should give him at least one day to apologize before you pack up and leave.”

Deborah gulped and nodded weakly.

Tony stared at Felicity. “Are you a marriage counselor or something?”

“Actually, I’m just the resident ghost-buster.” Felicity rose from her chair. “I’d better leave you to discuss matters on your own, or my mother will never get back to finish signing all those autographs.”

“But … ” Deborah’s weak protest faded. She stared at Tony.

Tony stared back. “You’ve got to come back home, Deb. It’s like she says.” He indicated Felicity. “You never even gave me a chance to apologize or explain.”

“Where do you think you’re going?” Aaron stood with Felicity. “Surely you aren’t going to abandon the field before you’re sure everything is thoroughly settled.”

“I think everything is progressing satisfactorily.” Felicity glanced pointedly behind him, where Tony kissed his wife like a starving man, and she kissed him back. “Now if I can just get Mama out of here before she convinces those two little boys that a ghost really is hanging around, all will be well in the Sachitano household.”

“I ain’t leavin’ this place until I’m sure my baby is all spoken for and everything is all settled.” Becky remained stubbornly in her chair. “I can’t concentrate on my music if I’m all worried that some lowdown wannabe singer is romancin’ my little girl and getting’ her all broken up and bruised.”

Felicity rolled her eyes. “Come on, Mama. It’s your job to act in Daddy’s place. You’re supposed to be vetting any and all suitors and making sure they can take good care of me.” She ignored Aaron, who slipped his arm around her waist.

“Law,” Becky said. “Don’t you think I already looked into all that?” She cast her gaze to the ceiling once more. “He’s okay, baby. Even your daddy says so.”

“You heard your mother.” Aaron drew her close in spite of her attempts to hold him off. “I’ve passed both your parents’ rigorous requirements. Therefore, you have to marry me.”

“I do not.” Felicity gave him a light shove. “I haven’t even been asked — ”

“Take that, ghost,” Joey cried.

Unseen by anyone, he had produced and unscrewed the lid off a bottle of garlic powder. With a sudden jerk of his hand, garlic powder flew in a fragrant cloud toward the ceiling and showered down over Felicity and Aaron.

“Law.” Becky leapt to her feet. “What on earth is that?”

“Oh, no,” Deborah groaned. “Not the ghost again.”

“I smell garlic,” Tony said in astonishment. “Put that fork down, Pete. There’s garlic powder everywhere.”

In the pandemonium erupting around them, Aaron stepped close to Felicity. “Then let me remedy that right now. Miss Clayton, you are the only woman in the world for me. Will you please marry me?”

Felicity dithered. Now that the moment had come, she found herself desiring to postpone it a minute or two longer.

“My shop is in Nashville — ” she began.

“Becky says you have a great manager in Nashville,” Aaron said. “So what’s stopping you from opening a branch of The Cosmic Cowgirl right here in genuine Texas cattle country?”

She pretended to think, which was difficult with Aaron’s arms around her. “That’s a good point. It would make great advertising copy, wouldn’t it?”

“Especially if you combine your advertising with mine,” Aaron said, equally thoughtful. “Those fancy cowgirl clothes of yours and a new Chevrolet truck … what could be better?”

“Oh, darn,” Felicity said. “I knew those Chevy trucks would be a deal breaker. This is all about my truck, isn’t it? You are so determined I drive a Chevy that you’re willing to marry me — what a disappointment.”

“Aaron, do something,” Deborah screeched.

Felicity and Aaron glanced toward the table they had just left. Both Pete and Joey stood on their chairs, glaring at the ceiling, table forks in hand.

“If we had some flour, we could throw it on the ghost,” Pete called. “Can you get us some flour, Felicity?”

“What is all this ghost business about, boys?” Tony rose calmly and removed the fork from Joey’s hand. “Sit back down before you get us thrown out of here.”

“Flour won’t work on ghosts,” Felicity said absently. “And with all the garlic in here, ghosts shouldn’t be a problem anyway.”

Becky winked at Felicity. “That’s for sure. It’s even run Johnny off, and I sure would have thought he’d stick around to see his little girl get herself engaged.”

“I’m not engaged yet,” Felicity said. “We’re still in the negotiating stage.”

“Why, you little heifer.” Aaron pulled her flush against his body. “We’ve agreed on the shop and the advertising scheme. For you to stick to driving a Chevy truck instead of a Dodge … I really ought to turn you over my knee on that one.”

“You just watch yourself, Aaron Whitaker, or I’ll sic Joleibenshen’s Benkenstein Venerschnitzel on you.”

“Who?” Aaron looked around, but everyone else was busy banishing lingering ghosts.

“The prize-winning schnauzer I’m about to adopt,” Felicity informed him. “His job will be to protect me from importunate Chevy truck salesmen.”

“So I’ll have to resort to carrying dog treats around with me all the time.” He lowered his face to hers. “But I don’t mind that. For you, no sacrifice is too great.” He smiled. “I’ll even give you one of my cows.”

“Now that’s the way a man ought to talk,” Becky said. “Good for you, Aaron. Hurry up and say yes, baby. I’ve got fans waiting.”

“Now, Mama, Aaron doesn’t want me to say yes because you made me.”

“Actually,” Aaron said, “I wouldn’t mind if you said yes because your mother made you. So long as you say yes.”

Felicity thought about this for a moment. “All right, then. Yes. I’ll marry you; but only because my mama made me.”

Becky folded her arms and sniffed. “Like I ever succeeded in makin’ her do anything.”

Aaron lifted Felicity and turned her in a slow circle, and she happily threw her arms around his neck.

“It’s all right, Mama. Aaron is going to fix me up with a branch of The Cosmic Cowgirl to run and a brand new Chevy truck to drive—that turquoise one, I think—and he’s going to give me a cow of my own that I can name Elsie. Like any other good businesswoman, I’m a sucker for a great bribe.”

“I’ll even throw in a horse,” Aaron said, grinning. “Every good cowgirl needs a horse of her own.”

“In that case, you’ve got yourself a deal, Mr. Whitaker.”

No one could say she didn’t know a good deal when she saw one, and a man like Aaron Whitaker was definitely a good deal.

She had the best deal of all, Felicity realized, as he sealed their bargain with a thorough kiss. She had him and she had his love, and that was everything.

Georgeanne Hartfield stayed at her desk and kept on working. She had hoped skipping lunch with her coworkers would buy her some peace, but she feared she was about to be proven wrong. Worse, her stomach grumbled and complained because she hadn’t expected to miss her lunch today, so she hadn’t brought along a sandwich.

She bent over her work as she heard the back door to the Gant Medical Clinic open. If she was lucky, they had discovered some new topic to discuss.

“Listen to this.” Nurse Denise Devereaux appeared and laid the hardback book she held down flat on Georgeanne’s desk with the air of one about to reveal a secret of the universe.

Georgeanne grimaced at the sight of the book her friend held so reverently. “I have work to do, Denise. I’m not getting paid to hear Fritzi Field’s sexual advice.”

“You aren’t getting paid to miss your lunch, either,” Denise returned. “Now pay attention, Georgie.”

“That’s telling her, Denise.” Redheaded Angela Porter joined Denise in leaning over the counter in front of Georgeanne. “The rest of us would love being paid for listening to hints on improving our sex lives.”

“Quiet, y’all.” Sandra Whitney, a tiny blonde pixie in her starched nurse’s uniform, joined the group and leaned over Denise’s shoulder to study the book. “I want to hear this. Simply everyone is talking about that book.”

Georgeanne gave up. She smiled upon the other three women and propped her chin on one long, shapely hand. “Go ahead, Denise. I can see I won’t be able to get a thing done until you’re through.”

Georgeanne prayed Dr. Gant or Dr. Baghri would come in, even though she knew they were out for a long lunch. Whip-cracking doctors never came around when the clinic receptionist needed them to maintain order among the staff. The Gant Medical Clinic, which was located in the rural southeast Texas community of Fannett, usually stayed too busy for such frivolities as book readings.

Denise, the chief nurse at the Gant Clinic, drew in a deep, dramatic breath. She was a beautiful African-American woman with skin the color of milk chocolate and a figure fit for a Playboy magazine centerfold. “‘If your husband makes your life miserable and blames you because you can’t have an orgasm on demand, he has no right to complain if you resort to a little acting every now and then.’”

“She’s got a point.” Sandra leaned further over Denise’s shoulder, her pale blonde hair brushing Denise’s black pageboy, and peered at the book.

“Why all this uproar over a book on how to fake an orgasm?” Angela, the clinic’s lab technician, wanted to know. “I don’t have that sort of trouble.”

Her tone implied
Why would anyone have a problem, unless she’s a psych case?
Georgeanne looked thoughtfully at the tall, slender redhead.

“Neither do I,” Sandra interjected, flushing. “But that doesn’t mean I don’t agree with Fritzi Field. Some women probably do have trouble. I mean — ”

“Then they should read
The Sensuous Woman
,” Angela interrupted. “Instead of wasting time learning how to fake it, they could be learning how to experience the real thing. Why all this uproar over something that’s completely natural?”

Georgeanne never ceased to be amused at the rapid defensiveness of modern women when the subject of orgasm came up. Either every woman she knew experienced orgasm instantly, or every woman she knew lied. According to her friends at the Gant Clinic, sexual desire and orgasm behaved like an electrical switch. When you flipped the switch, lights turned on. Period.

“Childbirth is perfectly natural, too,” Georgeanne said, “and look at all the books out on it.”

“
Faking It
isn’t about having an orgasm,” Angela argued. “It’s about faking an orgasm. There’s a difference.”

“Fritzi isn’t talking about normal men,” Denise said. “She’s talking about complete jerks. I should know. I was married to one. Listen to this. ‘Why let your marriage be destroyed, when it’s so easy to give him what he wants?

“‘Many a man thinks a woman ought not to need foreplay. He thinks she ought to be ready the minute he touches her, as if the very thought of sex with him is all that’s needed. Any suggestion that this may not be the way it works sends this man into a frustrated shouting and blaming fit.

“‘Who needs that?’”

The women looked at each other a moment in silent agreement when Denise finished reading that passage aloud.

“Who, indeed?” Georgeanne didn’t look up from her current task of comparing a column of hand-written numbers to a copy of the column in a printed report, but she knew her cheeks glowed with telltale red her thick fall of shoulder-length brown hair might not entirely hide.

One would think that a twenty-eight-year-old woman who had been married to a man who resembled a young Robert Redford would have stopped blushing when she lost her innocence. But that wasn’t the way things went with her face, Georgeanne thought with resentment. If anything, she blushed even more these days. Fritzi Field’s incredible and unexpected popularity, both nationwide and inside the Gant Clinic, kept her cheeks flaming. Maybe she should claim a sunburn. Or a medical condition.