Hot Cowboy Nights (14 page)

Lizzy nodded. “She’ll have to have a good strong name. I’ll call her Fefe for short. Help me name the boys.”

“Let’s give them our favorite cowboys’ names,” Allie said.

“Raylan is that cocky little guy who hisses when you pick him up.” Lizzy laughed.

“And this fat feller is Hoss from Bonanza,” Allie said.

“Only one left? Think we ought to name him Duke?” Lizzy asked.

“Perfect. We’ve got Hoss, Raylan, Duke, and Fiona to keep them all on their toes. I miss her so much. I want three daughters so my girls will have sisters like we’ve always had,” Allie said.

“I thought this was going to be an only child because she’s made you nauseous when you smell chili.” Lizzy picked up Hoss and buried her nose in his thick yellow fur.

“Oh, no, never. This baby will need a sister to help her name her kittens and to confide in when she likes a boy.” Allie grinned.

Rich aromas of chocolate mixed with barbecue met Toby when he entered the house through the back door that evening. Big black clouds hovered down in the southwest, but the sky didn’t have that eerie quiet feeling that preceded a tornado. He felt good about the day’s work. Perhaps clearing land wasn’t as exciting as his days on the rodeo circuit, but he loved seeing the results. With the cash he’d earned in those four years of chasing the rodeo around the country he’d been able to buy the High Roller ranch down in Muenster. It had been nothing but weeds, cow tongue cactus, and mesquite, but he’d put a lot of hard work into it and now it was a prosperous ranch that had brought in enough money to more than pay for his third of the Lucky Penny.

“Please tell me that is your famous pulled-pork barbecue.” He clamped a hand on Blake’s shoulder. “And do I smell chocolate cake? Lord, I think even this old scar on my face is aching tonight. I feel like I’m looking eighty in the eye rather than thirty.”

“Twenty-seven is not close to looking thirty in the eye, but I do not doubt for one minute that you have aches and pains from your rodeo days,” Blake said. “It’s time for you to settle down.”

“Not yet, brother. Maybe after I’m thirty, but definitely not now. This damn celibacy thing is teaching me right quick that I was born to raise hell not kids,” Toby said. “I do smell chocolate, right?” He changed the subject.

“It’s Mama’s sheet cake recipe,” Allie said. “We’ll eat it warm with a scoop of ice cream on top for dessert.”

“Now this is the life. Comin’ back to good home-cooked food after a day out there clearing land and listenin’ to country music with old Blue perched up there in the seat with me. How’s the roofin’ business, Allie?” Toby went to the sink and washed his hands. “I’ll set the table. My mouth is watering just thinking about pulled pork sandwiches and fried potatoes.”

“You see fried potatoes?” Blake asked.

“Please tell me you’ve got them in the oven keeping warm.”

“Cake is in the oven, but the potatoes are in the microwave,” Allie said. “And to answer your question, those boys have got the roof on the store. Deke is a slave driver. He swears we’ll have Lizzy’s back room done by Thursday at quittin’ time so the kids can have a three-day weekend to waste their money.”

“I remember those days very well,” Toby said. “We couldn’t wait to get old enough to take our money to the bar, could we, Blake?”

“I’m glad I’m past that time in my life.” Blake brushed a kiss across Allie’s lips as he carried the potatoes to the table.

Toby beat down the streak of jealousy. It wasn’t the first time in his life that Toby had been jealous of his older brother, Blake. But it had been a long time since the green-eyed monster had hit him as hard as it did that evening.

Can’t have your cake and eat it, too.

“What’s on your mind?” Blake touched him on the shoulder.

“Arguing with myself,” Toby answered honestly.

“You know what Jerry Clower said about that. When you start arguing with what you know is right, you’re about to mess up real bad. What’s the problem?”

“Something I have to work out for myself.”

Blake pulled out a chair for Allie. “Been where you are. It’s miserable. Don’t want to go back there. Let’s have some supper. Things always look better with a full stomach.”

“You got that right and I’m starving,” Toby said with a nod, avoiding what he couldn’t come to terms with…not yet.

Roast, simmered all day with potatoes and carrots in the slow cooker, was one of Lizzy’s favorite meals. Katy had also made one of her famous sheet cakes for dessert to top off the meal. When they sat down to eat, Lizzy’s urge to bare her soul to her mother was almost more than she could stand. But how did a daughter describe how hot those sexy nights were without burning herself up in embarrassment?

“Janie and Trudy and I are planning a little trip this next weekend,” Katy said. “We’re going to fly out of Dallas on Friday night to Las Vegas and we’ll come home Sunday evening. Sharlene is going to mind the store for me on Saturday.”

“Good for you.”

“It still feels strange, going places. Even up to Wichita Falls to the movies with Janie and Trudy. Your dad and I were tied down to the businesses all our lives, and then after he died, your grandmother needed us. I would have done things different if I had them to do over again. We would have taken vacations with you girls even if it was only short ones to the beach,” Katy said.

“We had lots of vacations, Mama. Don’t tell me your mind is slipping like Granny’s. They may have only lasted a day, but Sunday was family day. Remember all those summer days we spent at the lake on Sunday afternoons or how about Christmas when we all went together to stomp around in the mesquite looking for the right tree to drag home? We had fifty-two of those days a year. Do you realize that’s more than a six-week vacation if you stacked them all up together?”

Katy brushed away a tear. “Thank you, Lizzy.”

“Mama, there’s no regrets in this corner for the way we were raised and I don’t reckon you’d get any complaints out of Fiona or Allie, either. So go have fun with your friends, and good luck at the blackjack table.” Lizzy winked.

Fiona!

She hurried through her supper and said she was going up to take a long, hot bath and then watch some television in her room. No lie there. She was going to do both but not until after she’d talked to her sister.

Lizzy was antsy by the time she finished dessert. Could she really confide in anyone and could she trust her youngest sister to keep her secret? Her bedroom was a complete mess, as usual. Clothing strung everywhere and dust all over her dresser. The floor hadn’t been vacuumed in two weeks because when it had been her turn to clean the house last week, she’d rushed through it and ignored her room.

“This is a teenager’s room, not a grown woman’s who owns a business,” she fussed as she started cleaning. “Granny said lots of problems could be solved with good hard work. Let’s see if she’s right. Maybe I won’t need to call Fiona after all.”

Sweat streamed down her neck and through the valley between her breasts. She tugged at the wet band of her bra and kept on working until the room was neater than those times when it was Allie’s turn to do the house cleaning. “Take that, Alora Raine Logan Dawson,” she said as she sank into the rocking chair to catch her breath.

Trouble was she didn’t feel a damn bit better than she did when she started. A spotless room that took two whole hours to put to rights didn’t erase the feeling that she needed to talk to her sister.

The phone was in her hand when it rang, and it startled her so badly that she threw it across the room. It bounced in the middle of her bed and landed on the pillows. She left the rocker and snatched it, saw that the call was from Fiona, counted that as an omen, and hit the
TALK
button.

“Fiona! I’m so glad you called. How are things in Houston? God, I miss you. Please tell me you are coming home this month. You really need to meet Blake and Toby and see Allie at least once while she is pregnant and I’m about to lay a guilt trip on you so get ready for it—Granny don’t have many good days anymore so you need to come home and see her.” Lizzy rattled on and on.

“I talked to Allie and she said that she hired a crew to get your roof done and Herman’s barn built. Okay, okay! Mama is sending plane tickets and has rented a car for me so I’ll be there. But it’ll only be from Friday evening until Sunday. I can’t be away from work any longer than that and I miss you, too. Now tell me what else is going on? I hear you’ve got kittens and one is named for me.”

“Yes, four of them. Their mama is Stormy and the babies are Raylan, Duke, and Hoss, and the one little black lady is Fefe. She’s my favorite because she’s so sassy. But I’ve got a big problem and Mama and Allie are too close…” She paused.

“Toby Dawson,” Fiona said.

“What did Allie tell you?”

“Just that you liked him a lot and that she discouraged you and I should do the same if you brought up the subject,” Fiona answered. “How bad is it?”

Lizzy sat down on the edge of the bed, then remembered how sweaty she was and moved to the rocking chair. “I cleaned my room and it’s spotless. Clothes hung up. No dust, not even on the window blinds, and shoes are in neat rows. Does that tell you anything?”

“Holy hell! What have you done that warranted that punishment?”

“Are you sitting down and how much time do you have?”

“I am now and I don’t have to be at work until three tomorrow,” Fiona said.

“Okay, here goes.” Lizzy started with that evening when she was watching the store for her mother. Business had been slow at the feed store and Katy had to go to Wichita Falls to sign more papers for Granny’s care, so Lizzy put a sign on the door and went down to the convenience store for the last hour of the workday.

Toby had come in for a couple of pounds of bologna. Blue, as well as Blake’s dog, Shooter, liked a piece of bologna as a treat in the evenings. One thing led to another and after she locked the store, they wound up on the cot in the back room. Since she had the key to her mother’s store, it was the perfect spot for three weeks of the hottest sex in all of Dry Creek’s history.

She went on to tell the rest of the story. “And now we’re in this fake relationship. Toby is in it because he wants the people in Dry Creek to see him as a respectable citizen and not the player he is and because Sharlene is stalking him and he gets text messages and probably phone calls from women all the time and he needs a pretend girlfriend. I’m still not totally sure why I’m in it. I’m over Mitch even though some folks don’t think I am. Like I told Toby, one bad apple does not mean we have to throw out the whole crop.”

“And you’ve gone and fallen for him?” Fiona said.

“I wouldn’t go that far, but I do like him a lot.”

“You need a counselor. You’ve been hurt and…”

Lizzy laughed sarcastically. “Oh, sure. I’ll rush right down to Dr. Know Yourself Better on Main Street in Dry Creek and make an appointment tomorrow morning. And don’t tell me to talk to the preacher. I can’t tell him all this stuff.”

“Not the preacher. God no! I meant a real licensed counselor like I saw.”

Suddenly, the line went so quiet that Lizzy held it out to see if she’d lost the connection.

“When did you see a therapist?” Lizzy asked.

“I’ll keep your secret if you keep mine,” Fiona said.

“Deal.”

“I’ve been divorced for over a year and it was a messy one. I’d signed a pre-nup so all he had to give me was ten thousand dollars. Lawyers’ fees for the divorce cut that down considerably and when I went looking for a job, his firm had blackballed me. I’m working in a little coffee shop. Meet your sister, the barista, who is now Fiona Catherine Logan again,” she said in a rush. “God, that feels good to tell you, but you can’t tell Mama or she will worry. I make enough to get by, but I did lose my car. I’ve got an old pickup truck that manages to get me to work and back to my efficiency apartment, so I’m good. Don’t tell Mama, but I’m so tickled to get that plane ticket and the rental car so I can come see y’all. I’ve been so homesick lately.”

“Holy shit!”

Fiona giggled. “Back in the winter you weren’t cussin’. Maybe this Toby is a bad influence on you in more ways than one.”

“Come home, Fiona. You can put in an office here as a tax consultant and accountant with your education. I can’t believe that you got kicked out of the law firm. You were the best damn accountant they had. Most folks even thought you were a lawyer.” Lizzy shook her head to get rid of the image of her perfect sister pouring coffee for folks.

It didn’t work.

Fiona, the smart sister who’d gone to college. Fiona, the neat sister whose room always looked like it came out of a picture book. Fiona, the pretty redhead who had turned the heads of all the cowboys in Dry Creek. The vision of Fiona, wearing an apron and her pretty red hair in a ponytail sticking out the back of a ball cap, wouldn’t go away.

“I’m okay, Lizzy. For real, I’m okay. It will blow over and everyone will forget and a new firm will come to town and I’ll get a good job again. The counseling helped me tremendously. I wish you could go for a few sessions,” she said.

“You be my counselor. What should I do first?” Lizzy asked.

“Face your feelings. Scream. Yell. Cry. Then decide what you want and go get it. I could only afford a few sessions but basically that’s what I got out of it. I wanted to stay here so that’s what I did. I do not ever want to live in Dry Creek again, period, end of story.”

“I’ve already faced my feelings. What happened with Mitch was as much my fault as his,” Lizzy admitted. “I should’ve broken it off with him long before.”

“That’s good. I could see that you were changing yourself to meet his standards. I did the same thing with Paul and when I got tired of being the person he wanted and went back to being myself, he hated the small-town woman he’d married. So he found himself another woman that he should’ve married in the first place,” she answered. “So you really feel like you have closure on the Mitch issue?”

“Definitely,” Lizzy said firmly. “Do you have that yet with Paul?”

“I do. Last week he came into the coffee shop and I realized how much better off I am without his egotistical attitude ruling every day of my life,” she said.