Hot Cowboy Nights (21 page)

K
aty breezed into the feed shop, looking happier than Lizzy had seen her in years. Over breakfast, she’d given Lizzy a general play-by-play of her weekend. Then she’d called every half hour all morning as she remembered details.

“I put a sign on the door and thought you could do the same. Nadine has chicken fried steaks on her blue plate special today,” Katy said.

“Sounds good to me.” Lizzy picked up a sign with a ragged edge from taping it to the window so often. In her handwriting it said,
Gone to Lunch. Be Back at 1:00.

“Were you bored to tears all weekend or did you and Toby go out?” The wooden sidewalk sounded hollow beneath Katy’s cowboy boots. “I’ve been so wound up in my story and good time, I haven’t let you talk.”

“We had a nice dinner on Friday.” Lizzy wasn’t ready to share the story of the well and the skunk. “Then on Saturday after work, we went up to Olney to get two donkeys that he bought. Do you remember Melanie Robinson?”

“Name sounds familiar. Didn’t her parents live here for a little while?” Katy went into Nadine’s with Lizzy right behind her. She located an empty table in the back corner and made her way to it.

“They left when Melanie and I were pretty young. She’s married to Terry Dickson and that’s where we went to get the donkeys. She says she might come over here for the festival.” Lizzy pulled out a chair and sat down.

“Hey, you two. Y’all want the special?” Sharlene asked.

“Yes.” Katy nodded. “With two sweet teas.”

“Right on it. And Katy, any time you need me to run the store, just holler. I enjoyed it a lot.”

“I’ll remember that and might be calling on you pretty often.”

Sharlene gave her a thumbs-up sign and headed back to the kitchen to give Nadine the order.

“And yesterday?” Katy asked.

“What about yesterday?” Lizzy frowned.

“What did y’all do yesterday?”

“Church. Dinner. To see Granny where we had a big fight and I drove Deke’s truck home and then we made up,” Lizzy said.

“That sounds like real dating, not fake.”

Lizzy could feel her mother’s eyes boring into Lizzy, but she wasn’t about to look up from the menu. Even though she’d already given Sharlene her order, it gave her something to stare at. From youth, she’d figured out that if Katy or Granny ever looked into her eyes, they could see all the way to her soul and knew everything she’d done.

“So?” Katy pressed.

“It was a real fight. I wanted to bring Granny home. She had shoved everything she owns into black garbage bags and she thought we were the moving people. She didn’t even know where Dry Creek was but she wanted to move home. She thought she was in jail. Toby said I couldn’t do that and we had words about it.” That much was solid truth so she could glance away from the menu and into her mother’s eyes.

“Lizzy, we talked about this before we moved her there. The doctor warned us that things like this would happen and we’d have to stay strong,” Katy said.

“But she was so pitiful, Mama. I wanted to protect her like she did us girls when we were little. It’s not fair that life dealt this to her. She won’t even know Allie’s baby, and the times when she is lucid are getting fewer and farther between.”

Katy laid a hand on Lizzy’s. “I know that but this is best for her, not us. What if she ran away in the night and couldn’t find her way back to the house? She could die out in the weather, summer or winter. Did you talk things out with Toby?”

“Yes. He grilled some burgers and hot dogs and we had supper together with Deke who is in the market for a buyer for his ranch. He wants to sell his and buy the place that his cousin owns across the road.” Lizzy gave herself a mental pat on the back for changing the subject.

“It’s better property, has two good spring-fed ponds on it, and the house is in better repair. Don’t know anyone who wants to buy right now, but he could put up a flyer in my store and in yours, maybe run an ad in the newspaper in Wichita Falls. Trouble is…” Katy paused.

Lizzy pulled her hand free so Sharlene could set two tea glasses on the table.

“I’ve given up on taking Toby away from you. Now I’m waiting on Jud. I hear he’s the lucky cowboy, so I’m going to change my techniques and take a lesson from your playbook and Allie’s of course. You have to sneak upon a Dawson cowboy’s blind side and I’m going to come off as the sweet little woman who owns and operates a day care center,” Sharlene whispered.

“Well, thank you for that. I wouldn’t stand a chance if you were serious about Toby.” Lizzy smiled.

“No, you would not,” Sharlene said seriously. “Your steaks are nearly done. Nadine don’t cook nothing ahead of time. Might make it easier to throw it in the microwave to reheat, but she says it softens the crispy outside. Y’all hear that Deke is lookin’ for a buyer for his place?”

“We did. I’m surprised that you haven’t gone after Deke,” Lizzy said.

Sharlene giggled. “Honey, that boy is fun for a night or two, but it’ll take someone hotter’n me to run him to ground and I’m pretty damn spicy. Far as the ranch goes…” She lowered her voice. “He might as well wish in one hand and spit in the other. Nobody in town can afford to buy a ranch but Truman. He might buy it, and then if the Lucky Penny fails again he could swoop in and get it for a song and have a nice big place. But if the Lucky Penny doesn’t fail, then there he’d be with a section of land in the middle of two places he can’t stand. You know he and Herman Hudson are on the outs, don’t you? I hear the bell, which means your dinner is ready. Be back in a second.”

“She put it about right,” Lizzy said.

“Toby and Blake don’t want to make the Lucky Penny another section bigger?” Katy asked.

Sharlene set the plates in front of them. “I heard Toby would love to have the place, but the Dawsons have tied up all their money in the Lucky Penny. Of course, that’s fodder for the gossip mill. Folks are saying that if they don’t have the capital to keep things going at least five years that they’ll throw up their hands and move within a year. Truman is just waiting for his turn to latch on to it and yell ‘I told you so.’ Oh, crap, there’s Dora June and Ruby. Don’t worry, I’ll head them off at the pass and make them sit somewhere else.”

“Now tell me more about your trip. I thought you might come home saying that you were sick of Janie and Trudy and you were never going anywhere with them again,” Lizzy said.

Katy picked up her knife and fork, cut into the steak, and popped a bite into her mouth. “Not in the least,” she said when she’d swallowed and taken a drink of her tea. “We’re planning a trip to Florida after Thanksgiving if I can find someone to mind the store. I wish I had the nerve to move to Wichita Falls to be closer to them and your grandmother, both. But as long as I have a store to run, it will have to be a retirement dream.”

Deke was leaning on the door to the feed store when Lizzy returned. He held up a flyer but his expression didn’t have much hope.

“Come on in.” Lizzy stuck the key in the lock and gave it a twist. “Let’s talk about this deal before you put up the flyer.”

Deke flipped on the lights and stopped to pet Stormy when she came to meet them. “Why? Do you have someone who is interested in buying my place?”

“I do but they need a couple of days to think about it. Think you could hold off that long?” she asked.

He picked up the cat and held her close to his chest. “Darlin’, Lizzy, you’ve given me some light on a moonless midnight.”

“Don’t get too excited. They don’t know for sure but they did want a few days to think things through. It’s a big decision.” She picked up the little black kitten from the basket. “Oh, look, Deke, his eyes are open. The other three have all been open for a couple of days.”

“It’s an omen, Lizzy. His eyes are open so my potential buyers will come at this with an open mind. They won’t care if the ranch is in Dry Creek or right next door to the Lucky Penny.” Deke set Stormy on the floor and hopped up to sit on the counter. “I’ve told everyone I could get to stand still about this, Lizzy. I suppose it’s all right to say that I have a prospect and that I’m holding off for a few days until they make up their minds.”

“I don’t see why not. That might even help if there are others who are sitting on the fence about it,” she said. “So how quick can you be moved if it does sell?”

“Three days. My cousin and his wife are champing at the bit to get moved to Dallas. He’s going to be sorry as hell. He might not like the ranch, but the culture shock from going from Dry Creek to Dallas is going to turn his world upside down. He says they are packed and they can be gone in three days when a buyer shows up with the money,” Deke answered.

“Wow! That’s fast.” She put her black kitten in the basket with Stormy.

“Three days is how long the moving company said it would take to get a truck in here and get them loaded up and gone. He’s selling the equipment and cattle with his ranch.”

“And you?”

“No way. I’m taking my stuff with me. All I got to do is move it across the road, and I can do that in the three days they’re waiting to get out of the house,” he answered.

“But what about paper signing and deeds and all that?”

“He says they’ll come back up here and take care of the paperwork later. I’m going to Nadine’s for a piece of pie. Want to join me?” he asked.

She shook her head. “Just came from there. Had Nadine’s special for dinner. I don’t need anything else until supper.”

Lizzy turned up the radio when the DJ said that the next song was “Wild Child.” She tapped her thumb on the steering wheel to the beat. Like the lyrics said, Toby was a wild child and Lizzy wouldn’t ever be the same since he came into her life.

The song was about a woman, but in her mind Kenny was singing about Toby. He had the same rebel soul that the song talked about.

She parked her truck in front of Audrey’s Place as the song ended and agreed with the end of the song when it said that he was born to dance to the beat of his own heart. Everything the lady said about staying wild had Lizzy nodding in agreement.

“He brings out the wild in me and makes me shed all my inhibitions and be me. And that’s why I’m falling in love with him,” she said.

She could hear cows bawling across the pasture fence over on the Lucky Penny along with a few crickets and other summer noises. But mostly she could hear her heart doing double time.

“What in the hell did I just say? Did those words really come out of my mouth?” she whispered.

L
izzy worried with the idea of buying Deke’s ranch for two long days and nights. She stared at the ceiling at night, arguing with herself about such a fool notion. She cleaned her room—again. But not even a tidy bedroom brought about a decision. The only one she could talk to about the crazy idea was her cat, Stormy, and somehow purring didn’t bring any satisfaction.

She opened the feed store that morning and Deke was the first person to come through the doors. It had been seven weeks since Toby moved to Dry Creek. It had been four weeks since they started fake dating and one week since they’d been dating seriously. It was too damn early to be thinking about buying a ranch at this point in the relationship.

Deke looked around the store to be sure no one was hiding between the shelves or behind a round rack of new summer clothing. “So what did my potential buyer decide?”

“That they will buy your ranch and give you your asking price,” Lizzy said.

Had she really, honest-to-God, said those words out loud? She’d decided buying Deke’s place would be a big mistake not two minutes ago, so why in the hell had she changed her mind? But then maybe it wasn’t her mind doing the talking but her heart. If so, how could she possibly argue with that? The heart would have what it wanted or else it was almighty difficult to live with it.

Deke threw his hat into the air and shouted, scared Stormy, and sent four little kittens scampering for cover. He picked Lizzy up and swung her around in circles, kissed her on the forehead, and told her that he loved her a dozen times before he set her back on her feet.

“You get the lawyer to draw up the papers and Friday my friend will be there to sign everything and bring you a check. Do you need escrow money right now?” Lizzy panted between words.

“Hell, no! If you say they are good for the money, then I trust you. I’m going to tell my cousin that he can call the movers.” Deke started for the door and went back to pick up his hat from the floor. “Lizzy, they won’t back out will they? Tell me who they are. I’ve gone over every single person in town and those that we both know, trying to figure out who they are, and it is driving me crazy.”

“Do you trust me?” Lizzy asked.

Fefe, the little black kitten, ventured back out and Deke picked her up.

“With my life.” In seconds Fefe was curled up next to his big, broad chest, her eyes shut.

“Then please let this be a secret just for a couple more days. I promise this buyer is not going to back out.”

Deke raked his hands through his dark hair and settled his old straw hat back into place. “Then the movers will be here on Friday, but I can start moving my stuff over to the new place today. Tell the buyers that they can move in any time they want to after the weekend. I’ll start moving out as soon as I can pack. You are my new hero, Lizzy Logan.”

“You don’t have to rush. The buyer won’t move in for a while,” Lizzy said.

“But I do because there’s a ton of stuff I want to do at the new place before fall. I’m glad Allie has slowed down taking on new jobs because I won’t have any time to give her until after Christmas.” Deke fairly well danced out of the store on a cloud of air with his feet six inches off the floor.

“Well, Stormy, we made him happy and cut my bank account into half.” Lizzy sank down into the chair behind the counter and shut her eyes tightly.

“Hello, beautiful,” Toby said softly.

At first she thought it was a figment of her imagination, but then she got a whiff of his shaving lotion and her eyes popped open. “I didn’t hear the bell ring.”

He propped his elbows on the counter and supported his chin in his hands. “I came in through the back to tell you that we need a few more fence posts out on the ranch. Did I hear Deke in here?”

“You did.”

“What’d you hear about his ranch? He told me that you had a potential buyer on the hook for him. Did it pan out?”

Lizzy pushed up out of the chair and brushed a kiss across Toby’s lips. “It did. They’re closing the deal Friday. The buyer has cash so they don’t have to wait on the bank to finance things.”

“Care to share who my new neighbor might be?” Toby whispered as he traced her lip line with the tip of his finger.

“I’m sworn to secrecy until the papers are signed,” she said.

“Please tell me it’s not Truman.” Toby toyed with a strand of her hair, twisting it around his finger and drawing her nearer with it.

“It’s not Truman. I would never do that to Deke or to you. Besides I don’t think Truman wants land that sets between Herman Hudson and your ranch.” She leaned in for another kiss.

“Will I like this new buyer? Will they be good neighbors?” He nibbled on her earlobe.

“I hope you’ll like them, and I guarantee they will be good neighbors.” She shivered. Talking about a ranch, even if it was the one she’d just agreed to buy, wasn’t at all what she wanted to think about right then.

The cowbell above the door sounded loudly and he stood up straight. “So if you will ring up about ten fence posts, I’ll be on my way.”

She poked buttons on the cash register, ran his credit card, and he signed it before she ever looked toward the door. “Hey, Mary Jo, what can I do for you today?”

“I need some advice. I want to buy a store building to put in a beauty shop and I don’t even know where to start.” Mary Jo pushed her red hair behind her ears and stooped down to pet Stormy and the kittens.

“Nice seeing you, Mary Jo,” Toby drawled. “See you later, Lizzy. Allie says that you are having supper with us tonight. Deke is coming, too, so don’t be late. You know how cranky he can get when he’s hungry.”

“I’ll be early but don’t worry about Deke. He’s running on adrenaline today,” Lizzy said.

“Did he sell his ranch?” Mary Jo asked.

“Yes, he did, and he’s starting to move things across the road today.” Lizzy smiled.

“Who’s the buyer? I heard you had a hand in telling someone about it.”

“I’m sworn to secrecy until the deal is closed. Now about a building for you.” Lizzy quickly changed the subject. “There’s lots of empty places. Which one do you have your eye on?”

“I wouldn’t mind having the one next door to you on this side of the street, but that won’t happen since Truman owns it. Please tell me that you didn’t help him buy Deke’s place. Allie don’t need that old fart next door to her,” Mary Jo said.

“It’s not Truman, I swear. Besides like I just told Toby he wouldn’t want to be sandwiched between Herman and the Dawsons. I thought you were looking at one of the two across the street that Mama has for sale.”

“I am but I’d really like to be on this side of the street.”

“Good luck with that. Sharlene is looking at the old clothing store, and the old barber shop is right next door to it, so you wouldn’t be the only one over there.”

“I didn’t think of that,” Mary Jo said, and smiled. “At one time she thought about the old hotel.”

“She wouldn’t want the old hotel because it’s two stories and the stairs could make the insurance go sky high with little kids around,” Lizzy said. “How many kids do you think she’ll keep and what ages?”

“She’s already got a couple of women interested in helping her run the place and says she’ll keep the number to whatever the rules say she can keep. She really likes kids and she’s so tired of that job at the bank.”

Store buildings. Ranches. Lizzy would rather talk about Toby but that wasn’t possible. “I think that would be a great place. Lots of parking since there’s nothing else over there right now, and even if Sharlene does put in her day care center, not that many women at one time will be parking out front.”

“I really want to do this. I’m so tired of driving to Wichita Falls every day and I have saved a little since I first started to work,” Mary Jo said.

“Mama would be glad to rent, sell, or even give you a deal like she gave Nadine with the café, and you can lease to own,” Lizzy answered.

Mary Jo pumped her fist in the air. “You’ve talked me into it. I’m off to talk to Katy.”

Lizzy waved as Mary Jo hurried from the building.

Everyone had thought the Logans were downright stupid to buy the buildings as they came up for sale, but few realized that Katy owned all of them except for the one Truman held the deed to. Lizzy’s mother and father had bought them one by one with hopes that someday Dry Creek would be more than a ghost town. Maybe that dream would become a reality even yet.

Thinking of owning land and buildings brought Lizzy back to the situation she’d just gotten herself into that morning. On Friday she would own six hundred and forty acres of land complete with a crop of hay in the field, a couple of barns, two ponds, and an old house that had a decent roof but needed lots of repair. What had she been thinking when she let her heart do the talking instead of her mind?

Supper plans changed for the evening. Allie took a pot of soup and a pan of cornbread to Deke’s place and the guys moved tractors, four-wheelers, and cattle across the road all evening. Allie, Katy, and Lizzy sat on the porch after supper, swatted at the flies, and drank a half-gallon jug of iced sweet tea.

Katy slapped the red plastic swatter on the table and two flies were eliminated from the Sullivan ranch forever, amen. “I’m ahead of y’all. That makes forty-three for me.”

“Mama is the superwoman fly killer in the whole state of Texas.” Allie laughed.

“Yes, I am, and next week I expect a cape for all my efforts. Lizzy, you could whisper the name of the new owner real quiet and we promise we won’t tell,” Katy said.

Lizzy shook her head. Her sister and mother would both fall off the porch if she told them that she’d bought the ranch. Hell’s bells! They might even have her committed or put into the same room with Granny at that place in Wichita Falls.

The decision to buy the property had not been impulsive. When Deke first mentioned selling it, the thought had gone through her head that she should buy the place to help him out, and then she could sell it and make a slim profit maybe. Then she remembered telling Toby about her dreams of having her own place someday. Maybe if she wasn’t living at Audrey’s, then Fiona would come home permanently. She’d written out pros and cons in a notebook, and even if Fiona never came back to Dry Creek, the pros outweighed the cons. She wanted her own house close to her mother and sister, and the land was an added bonus because it could be leased out.

“Well, they’ve got a job cut out for them.” Allie picked up her glass of tea. “The ranch is in good condition. Hay ready for a second cutting and barns in great repair. But the house. Great God almighty! It needs a hell of a lot of work. As you can see, kitchen hasn’t been updated in decades, with those avocado green appliances, and don’t even get me started on that Pepto-pink bathroom. I’m surprised that Deke even brought women home with him.”

Lizzy swallowed hard. She hadn’t thought about that ugly pink bathroom and the green kitchen. It was going to take the rest of her life savings to remodel the place, but everything did work even if it was butt ugly, so maybe she wouldn’t start spending money right away. However, that hay in the field would have to be cut in the next two weeks, so that meant telling someone what she’d done before then.

She owned her bed, dresser, chest of drawers, and an old beat-up rocking chair that would look right at home in her new place. But she didn’t have dishes, cookware, or even a single towel to call her own since she’d lived in her mother’s house her whole life.

There was still a chance to back out. She could always be an anonymous buyer and put the ranch up on the market through a real estate agent out of Wichita Falls, and no one would even know she’d bought it.

No, that would never work.

Sitting there on the porch with her sister and mother, she already felt like she belonged on the ranch, so selling it would not be an option. She thought she’d found peace with Mitch. Peace in knowing who she would spend the rest of her life with. Peace in submitting to her station in life as a preacher’s wife. But that was only her mind talking. As she sipped her tea on the porch of an old house that needed so much work something settled into her heart, and she recognized it as true harmony with heart, mind, soul, and the world. No, sir, this place would not go on the market again.

Telling her mother that she now owned a ranch and would be moving onto it would not be easy. Not that long ago she’d planned to move completely away from Dry Creek, and this was only a mile, as the crow flies, from Audrey’s Place. The nice thing was that she didn’t have to tell anyone until Friday and then she could swear Deke to secrecy for at least a couple of weeks.

Katy set her red plastic cup on the porch. “Mosquitoes are tryin’ to carry me off and it’s getting late, so I’m going home. Y’all want a ride? I don’t reckon these guys will keep after it much longer tonight.”

Allie stood up. “I’ll go with you. When Deke gets ready to pack up the stuff in the house we’ll be a lot more help. Whoever bought this place got a fine chunk of property. I hope they like ranchin’ and that they’re good neighbors.”

Lizzy smiled up at her sister. “I’m still not sayin’ a word.”

“You are wicked and evil and I will find a way to get even. I should know before all the gossipmongers in town, and believe me, they will find out even if they have to go to the courthouse on Monday and look at the books,” Allie said.

“They wouldn’t do that,” Lizzy gasped.

“They will if they don’t have a snitch in the courthouse that will do it for them. Dora June probably has the whole staff on standby. By Friday night the news of the new buyer will be bigger than Mitch coming to the festival on Saturday.” Allie wiped beads of sweat from her forehead with the tail of her shirt.

“Hot, ain’t it?” Lizzy smiled.

“Come on, Mama.” Allie sighed. “She’s not going to give up a damn thing. You could make her sleep on the porch until she tells us.”

“I could but then I’d have to live with her bitchin’, so I’m not going to.” Katy laughed. “See you at home or at breakfast if you come in after I’m asleep.”

“Good night,” Lizzy said.