Hot Cowboy Nights (19 page)

D
ark clouds had begun to gather when they left the restaurant. Lightning streaked through the sky in long spiky strips with thunder following on its heels. The wind whipped around from the south to the north and blasted and shook the tree limbs as the temperature dropped ten degrees in as many minutes. The first big drops of rain sizzled against the hot sidewalk as Lizzy and Toby ran from the truck to the care facility where her grandmother lived.

“Looks like we beat it,” Toby said as they rushed inside.

She shook the rainwater from her dark brown knee-length skirt. “Just when I was beginning to think that our luck had run out.”

Toby ran a hand over her shoulders, brushing the few drops that had settled on her light tan lacy blouse. “Have I told you that you look beautiful in shades of brown? Or that I’m real partial to lace?”

“Well, well, well! Look what I found, Laney.” A tall blonde with steely blue eyes glued herself to Toby and locked lips with him in a kiss that lasted only three days short of eternity.

“I’ll be damned. I thought you went back to the hinterlands. We ain’t seen you or Deke since last winter.” Another one, just like the one with her body still stuck to Toby’s, rounded the corner of the hallway. God must have surely had a sense of humor when he made two just alike.

“Hey, did I hear someone call my name?” Deke stepped in out of the rain and removed his cowboy hat.

“It’s a party!” The second woman clapped her hands.

Toby wiped a hand across his lips. “Laney and Lisa, please meet my girlfriend, Lizzy Logan.”

Deke poked her on the arm. “Nobody will ever know, Lizzy. You’re not going to hold him back are you?”

What in the hell was happening?

It was pretty evident that Deke and Toby knew those two bimbos dressed in shorts so tight that nothing was left to the imagination. Lizzy’s eyes traveled upward from the hooker shorts to halter tops that showed cute little belly button rings with a pink arrow pointing downward. They had to be twins and they were six feet tall in those bright red high-heeled shoes. So this was his type—the women that he partied with. No wonder he had second thoughts about a mousey woman with dirty blond hair and brown eyes.

“Not today, Deke,” Toby said.

Deke already had an arm around Lisa. “Why not? I thought I’d drop by to see Irene since Katy is gone this weekend, but I can come back anytime. Let’s go grab a six-pack.”

Laney ran a forefinger down Toby’s jawline. “We’ll take you to our house. It’s not far from here and we can pick up where we left off last time.”

Toby stepped away from Laney and tucked Lizzy’s arm into his, patting her hand the whole time. “Lizzy and I are going to see her grandmother. Y’all have a wonderful time and I’ll see you tomorrow, Deke.”

“You ain’t no fun at all,” Laney said with a pout.

“You were at one time. I remember that morning-after breakfast. Whoa! You look familiar.” Lisa eyed Lizzy like she was checking her for head lice or warts. “She looks like that woman that had Blake buffaloed. Remember that morning, Laney, when the grandmother showed up wearing that crazy outfit?”

“I’m her sister,” Lizzy said. “And she and Blake are married.”

“Well, shit! I wanted a chance at that cowboy.” Lisa sighed.

Laney giggled. “It was one wild weekend, wasn’t it? So Deke, you want to go home with us?”

“Naw, if Toby isn’t going, I’ll take a rain check. Y’all have fun. Y’all visitin’ someone here?” Deke asked.

Lizzy could have cut his tongue out with a rusty butter knife. She wanted to get away from the twins, not stand there and catch up with them.

“Our great aunt Myrtle is in here and it was our Sunday to drop by. Thank God she was sleeping so we didn’t have to stay. We came. We saw. We are going shopping if we can’t talk you two handsome cowboys into going home with us,” Lisa said.

“Didn’t you hear him? I am his girlfriend,” Lizzy finally said.

“Who cares? You can come along, too, and we’ll make it an orgy.” Laney winked.

“What did you mean, Deke? When you first came in from the rain you said this woman would hold him to something? What’s going on here?” Lisa asked.

“Nothing,” Deke answered. “I reckon we’d better get on down the hall to see Lizzy’s granny.”

“If you change your mind anytime between now and midnight.” A pen appeared out of nowhere and Laney wrote on Deke’s hand. “That is my cell number and we are always ready to party with you cowboys. Give me an hour after you call and I’ll be sure the ingredients are in the house for tomorrow morning’s breakfast.”

Lisa pushed a button above the light switch and an attendant came around the corner to poke in the exit code for that day. The fact that they could run through the rain on slick concrete in those high-heeled shoes left Lizzy completely speechless.

“I’m sorry,” Toby said.

“For what? Y’all ain’t really dating. Lizzy is a good sport and no one would have even known…Oh. My. God!” Deke slumped down into an overstuffed chair in the lobby. “Pretend is over and you are dating, aren’t you? That’s the only thing that would keep you from taking those two up on an afternoon of fun and games.”

“Yes, we are,” Toby said.

“And if you tell anyone, especially Allie, I will make sure they never find your body or bones,” Lizzy said.

“Dammit! I lost a good bar buddy.” Deke stood up, shoulders slumped in a grown-man pout. “Let’s go see your granny, Lizzy. You know she wouldn’t like this idea one bit. She wasn’t a bit happy with Allie for marryin’ Blake.”

“I’m dating him, not marrying him,” Lizzy said.

Black garbage sacks were stacked up at the foot of Irene’s bed. She was sitting in the middle of a bare mattress encased in a plastic protective cover. “It’s about damn time y’all got here. I called the moving company hours ago. You just can’t get good help this day and age. I swear to God, I’d send you on your way if I didn’t need you to take me home so bad.”

“Granny, I’m Lizzy, not the moving company.” Lizzy moved to the side of the bed and tried to hug her grandmother.

“Don’t you touch me, woman. I’ll scream and the prison guards will come and throw you in a dungeon,” Irene yelled. “You are here to take me home, not hugging me and trying to talk me into staying. I’ve served my time for falling in love with Walter and it’s time to get out of this prison.”

“Granny, let’s visit for a little while first.” Lizzy bit her lip to keep from weeping. Life was so unfair. Her grandmother had been such a force before the dementia. Walter had lived on the Lucky Penny more than thirty years ago, and evidently she’d fallen in love with him. Whether it went beyond a crush and flirtation, no one knew. But today her granny thought she’d been sentenced to prison for whatever happened.

“Take me home, please.” Irene’s blank eyes captured Lizzy’s as she begged.

“Lizzy, it’s not possible,” Deke whispered.

“Only for a day or two so she won’t feel like this,” Lizzy said softly.

“Talk where I can hear you,” Irene demanded.

“Let’s talk about this outside,” Toby said.

“Irene, do you remember me?” Deke pulled up a chair and sat down beside the bed. “I’m Deke. I help Allie with her construction jobs and own a little spread in Dry Creek and do some rodeo touring. Remember?”

Toby looped his arm through Lizzy’s and led her out into the hallway.

“Hell, no, I have never met any of you. You are here to take me home. Where is Dry Creek? I live at Audrey’s Place,” Irene said.

Tears streamed down Lizzy’s face and Toby held her close to his chest. “Your mama told you that this happens. Is this the first time you’ve seen it?”

She nodded.

“Lizzy, you can’t take her home. She doesn’t even know where home is. Tomorrow she won’t even remember this,” Toby said.

Toby was only trying to console her, but something rebelled right there in the hallway outside her grandmother’s room. Maybe it was the flirty waitress or those two hussies who’d met them in the lobby. Or the fact that the brazen twins made her feel so dowdy and ugly. But something triggered a bomb in her heart and it exploded.

“Don’t tell me what I can or cannot do with my own grandmother.” She pushed away from him and folded her arms over her chest. “You can’t begin to understand how helpless I feel. She took care of me. She wiped my nose when I had a cold. She cooked for me, cleaned my room so I wouldn’t get in trouble, and I can’t do a thing for her. She wants to go home, Toby.”

The light above her grandmother’s door flashed on and two nurses jogged down the hall. They entered the room with Lizzy and Toby right behind them. Deke was in the corner with his hands up like a villain in an old western movie. Irene had made a gun out of her thumb and forefinger and had it pointed right at his crotch.

“Look what he’s done to my room. He’s trying to kidnap me. He even took the sheets off my bed.” Irene holstered her imaginary pistol and looked past Lizzy at Toby. “He was with him. They were going to rob me.”

“You two get on out of here and we’ll deal with you later,” the older nurse said with authority in her voice. “You’ll probably do jail time over this. What about this young lady? Was she in on it? Who put all your stuff in these bags, Miz Irene?”

“No, they did it all. She’s my granddaughter, Allie.” Irene sat down in a rocker and frowned. “Or is it Fiona. Yes, this one is Fiona. I haven’t seen her in ten years and she looks like her sister. I’ll sit right here while y’all put all my stuff away. Fiona, you make up that bed so I can have a nap.”

“We’ll take care of it,” the nurse said.

Irene cocked her head to one side and then the lights went out. She’d been frantic one second and now the muscles in her face were slack and her eyes dull. “Who are all you people?”

“We are the cleaning crew. We’ll have everything put to rights in just a few minutes,” the older lady said.

“I wanted to take her home for a couple of days,” Lizzy whispered.

The younger one shook her head. “Not a good idea.”

Irene stared blankly out the window, a smile tickling the corners of her mouth. “When you girls get this room in order, you should go out there and hoe the weeds from the garden.”

“Yes, ma’am, we will get right on that,” the nurse said.

“Who are you, again? And why aren’t you helping taking care of this mess you made?” Irene looked straight at Lizzy and the smile disappeared.

“She’s our supervisor,” the younger nurse answered.

“I see. I’m sleepy. You can go now. You trained these two pretty good,” Irene told her.

“Thank you.” Lizzy bit back the tears as she left the room.

Deke and Toby were in the lobby, sitting on the sofa and talking so low she couldn’t hear them. Could it be they were regretting not going with those women? All the anger inside her at not being able to do a blessed thing rose to the top, and she marched right up to Deke and held out her hand.

“What?” he asked.

“Give me your truck keys. I’m going home. You can ride back to Dry Creek with Toby or the two of you can do what you wanted to do all along.”

“And what did we want to do?” Toby asked.

“Just go. Have a great time with the booty bitches. I’ll leave the keys under the floor mat so you don’t even have to come in the house,” she said.

Deke handed her the keys and she nodded toward a nurse’s aide who rushed over and hit the code to let her out. It was like a jail. Granny couldn’t come and go when she wanted. The windows were locked so she couldn’t raise them to get a breath of fresh air. No wonder she was losing the last thread of her memories and life.

By the time Lizzy had adjusted the driver’s seat to fit her small frame, tears streamed down her face. One look in the rearview let her know she was a complete mess with long streaks of dark mascara and light blue eyeliner running down her cheeks and dripping onto the ecru lace top. It was probably ruined but Lizzy didn’t give a damn. At least she could walk out of that place and inhale the wonderful aroma of the air after a summer rain.

She was still sniffling when she pulled into the driveway at Audrey’s Place. Sitting in the truck with the window rolled down, she imagined the original ladies who lived in the house sprawled out on the porch steps with fans. The madam of those women would be her ancestor.

Granny’s great-grandmother had built the place for a hotel with her husband. Then he died and the Depression hit and the rest was history. When she shut down the brothel, she married the local deputy and they had a daughter who lived in the house until she died. It had been passed down from one generation to the next and someday Lizzy might inherit it.

Her mind and heart were at war with each other as her thoughts went from one subject to another. She could have been like those two women in the nursing home if Audrey’s Place had been a brothel for a few more generations, so what right did she have to judge them? They’d had a good time with Deke and Toby in the past. So much for forgetting the past like she’d preached about to Toby.

Lizzy groaned when she remembered where she’d heard those two bimbos’ names. They’d been the cause of a major fight between Allie and Blake. Allie had gone over to the Lucky Penny to work and found those two women in the house.

“But there it is. Poor old gals didn’t have any idea that the playboy they’d had so much fun with was trying to force himself up out of the mold,” she said.

She got out of the truck and put the keys under the mat, walked up on the porch, and sat down in the swing. Five minutes later the sound of a truck engine got louder and louder until finally it was sitting in her front yard.

Both doors opened. Deke waved, went to his vehicle, and drove down the lane. Toby leaned against the fender of Blake’s truck. Arms folded tightly across that broad expanse of chest, he stared out across the pasture and didn’t even glance toward the porch. That he was angry was an understatement. That he had a right to be madder than a wet hen after a tornado hit was a guaranteed fact.

She’d had no right to turn on him in her fit of anger. Even less to demand that Deke hand over the keys to his truck so she could drive home alone. No doubt, he was trying to form the words to tell her to go straight to hell because he didn’t need to be in a relationship with anyone as immature as Lizzy Logan.