Lucky In Love (13 page)

“Can I call later tonight? Might be around ten-thirty or eleven?”

“That would be nice,” she said.

“Then it’s good-bye until then. Have a nice day.”

Nice day. He didn’t have two sane brain cells to rub together. She’d gotten past her parents with the story, but she still had to face her brothers and that wasn’t going to be easy.

“Well, I’d say he does have some kind of feeling for you. Roses and phone calls,” Angelina said.

“Oh, Momma, he just wanted to be sure I hadn’t driven too fast and put his daughter’s life in jeopardy,” Milli sighed.

“Didn’t you tell him you flew? Doesn’t he know that you do stunts in competition?” John asked. “Katy Scarlett wants me to take her to the barn and put her on a horse for a ride. I’ve missed her something awful.”

Milli actually blushed. “I told him I rode bulls and that was about all he could take in at one time. Most of the time, we argue a lot. I really don’t think - we could ever agree on anything, except maybe Katy’s welfare.”

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MILLI WORRIED WITH HER HAIR FOR TEN MINUTES while Katy played on the floor at her feet. Finally, in exasperation she twisted the back up and held it with a clasp. She checked her makeup again and reapplied a tawny lipstick. It had literally been years since she’d been out on a date. Not since Matthew. Not since the night before she had found him in the motel room and swore that she’d never trust another man. If he could look deeply into her eyes and tell her how much he loved her without blinking, and go straight into the arms of another woman, then how could she trust anyone else not to do the same thing?

She adjusted her bra strap so it didn’t show under the sleeveless dress she’d chosen to wear. It was just a simple, bright floral rayon, flowing in soft gathers from a fitted waistline to the edge of her anklebone. She slipped her feet into a pair of red leather sandals, the same color as the predominant flower in the fabric. “Do I look like someone set me down in the bougainvillea?”

She picked up the newest perfume she’d bought at the mall the previous week - something called Green Tea - then, with a mischievous grin, she set it back down and picked up a half-used bottle of Taboo and dabbed a little behind her ears. She seldom ever used that fragrance anymore, not since the wedding in Texarkana. Matthew hated it and in defiance she’d picked it up and taken it with her when she went to east Texas. After she’d found out she was pregnant, she put the perfume aside as a bad luck omen and hadn’t worn it since.

“We’ll see how good his memory really is, or how drunk he really was,” she said nervously.

Just like always, Beau shook the legs of his jeans down over his boot tops when he got out of the truck. It hadn’t been so very long since he’d dated Amanda and called her every night during the week, so why did he feel like a fifteen-year-old out on his first date? If he hadn’t sworn completely off liquor when he awoke in the back room of that trailer almost two years ago, he would have poured himself a healthy shot of Jack Daniels just to get rid of the jitters.

“Hello,” Jim said from the shadows in the corner of the porch. “See you’re right on time, son. Have a seat here and talk to me. How’d the cattle sale go?”

“Fine. Bought a bull and two calves. One of the boys over at the Bar M left this morning with the trailer to go bring them home. Saw some fine white-faced cattle and missed you being there with me. Might have bought a cow, but I wasn’t quite sure. Remembered you saying once something about when in doubt, back out. Maybe you can go with me next year?”

“I damn sure hope so,” Jim said. “I could’ve gone this year, but I’d have had to fight Mary and it wasn’t worth the trouble. The ranch don’t need any new bloodlines right now. But I sure missed the steaks and good times and I just flat pouted around here a couple of days when I thought about the poker games. I think them women is about ready in there. Funny how things turns out sometimes, ain’t it?”

Milli opened the door.

“Katy. Come here to Daddy, baby.” He turned quickly to see how Jim would take the idea of him calling himself daddy to Katy and only caught a wink and a nod. “I missed you so much these past two days. Look here what I brought you.” He held his hands out and she reached for him. He put a stuffed Angus bull in her chubby little hands.

She stuck the ear in her mouth. “Kitter,” she said.

He looked at Milli.

“Kitter. It means critter. That’s what my dad calls the cows to her.”

“Kitter it is, then. She’s after my heart,” Jim laughed. “She knows those critters are made to feast upon.”

Beau held up a long, thin white box with a bright red ribbon around it. “And for you, Milli. Just something I found and thought you’d like.”

Milli loved presents. Her brown eyes sparkled, but she would have gladly handed it back to him for just one long, drawn out kiss, complete with her tongue sliding across his lower lip to taste the remnants of peppermint gum.

“Thank you.”

He’d have to remember the sweetness in her face when he gave her a present. It might come in handy one of these days after one of the fights they were bound to have.

Opening the box, she found a tooled-leather hatband with bead work in the middle and beads entwined in the thongs falling off the back of the brim. She held it up under the porch light and examined the intricate work. Hours and hours of someone’s precious time had gone into the making of the thin strip. Red beads were mixed with tiny chunks of real turquoise and silver, and she could already picture it on the brim of her red hat, which she wore when she barrel raced.

“Thank you so much, Beau. I love it, and it’s so nice of you to remember us.”

“At least Katy gave me a hug.” he pouted.

Jim chuckled.

“Oh, all right.” She hugged him, then quickly backed away when she realized the effect his long, lean, muscular body had on hers.

“You are very welcome, Miss Milli.”

The vibes passing between them were enough to make his voice catch like it did when he was going through puberty. But it was not supposed to reappear when he was thirty years old and a father.

Milli headed toward her truck. “I need to get her car seat.”

“Nope, I bought her a new one. Saves a lot of bother.” He opened the back door of the club cab truck and sat the baby in the seat.

He opened the passenger door for Milli and waved good-bye to Jim as he shut it behind her.

“You look lovely tonight. That perfume” - he inhaled deeply and dramatically - “it’s what you wore to the wedding. I’ll never forget that wonderful smell. I took the pillowcase off the bed the next morning and slept with it until it didn’t smell anymore. Even when the boys told me you were never there, I hung on to hope because of that very smell, and the earring I found on the floor.”

“You did what?”

“Well, they kept telling me you were just a figment of my imagination.” He braked at a stop sign and turned to really look at her in the moonlight streaming through the truck window. Her mouth was full and sensuous and her skin a permanent tan. Jet-black eyebrows and lashes framed the softest brown eyes in the whole world. At least they were soft until she got angry, then a whole bevy of icicles or sparks could come shooting out of them. “But I found the earring, and the perfume was there. The same kind you’ve got on tonight. Wear it forever, Milli. It brings back some beautiful memories.”

“But it’s an old fragrance.” She shifted nervously closer to the door. Another backfire. She’d only worn it to torment him, and now she was the one with an itch down so deep she could never scratch it.

“I don’t care if it’s a buck a gallon and worn by women my grandmother’s age. It’s heady and wonderful.”

Boy, did Amanda throw away more than just the diamond on her finger. If he’s this romantic all the time, then she’s the grand chump fool of the century. I can understand now why she came back in her new western finery to try to make up with him. I would have changed my tune, too, once I thought about it.

“Burger King?” she asked incredulously when he pulled into the parking lot.

“Sure, this is for Katy. We’ll have burgers and fries and ice cream and then we’ll play in the jungle gym stuff with her. And alter that we’ll go to the Wal-Mart store out on Commerce and let her look at all the toys. She can take all the time she wants, since they stay open twenty-four hours. Friday night is our night. Just me and you night. I hope it can always be that way.”

Always be that way? What about the other five nights? she thought. Are those the nights when we fight to the draw and try to bring blood with our anger? “0… kay,” she finally said.

So much for romance and perfume and worrying about which shoes to wear with her dress. But Burger King?

It seemed as if they really were a little family of three by the time Beau strapped Katy into the car seat and they started home. He tucked a new stuffed bear - this time it was honey brown - into her arms and she was sleeping before the lights of Ardmore had faded away. He put on a Vince Gill CD and kept time with his fingers on the steering wheel as he drove.

Milli listened to the music with one ear and to her heart with the other. Every fiber in her body longed to be brazen enough to slide across the wide seat and kiss him on the earlobe. She’d like to put Katy to bed, pick up a blanket, and take it and him to the woods between his ranch and hers and simply make love with him all night. But she had played the wanton hussy once and what a mess it had made. She should build a relationship before she toppled into bed with Beau again. And yet, other than a few pleasant moments, it seemed as though building a relationship might be more difficult than staking claim to one of those bright stars up in the sky. She’d gotten past the place where she didn’t want to share Katy, and overcome the hurdle of telling her folks… and her brothers, who surprised her by wanting to meet Beau rather than kill him. But she still didn’t trust her own judgment. She’d done so once and it had failed her miserably. She knew about those women who were drawn to the same type of men over and over again, and she didn’t think she was so very different from all the female population. There was a flaw in Beau somewhere or they wouldn’t say he was lucky in everything but not so lucky in love. She didn’t know if her heart could stand the agony of being broken in a million pieces the second time.

“Think she had a good time?” Beau asked.

“I think you will spoil her. She doesn’t need something every time you arrive at the door or take her out. What are you going to do for birthdays and Christmas if you keep buying like this?”

“Those holidays are for really big things. Like ponies and three-wheelers when she’s older. A playhouse with all the trimmings when she’s four or five and a swimming pool in the backyard when she’s a teenager. I can’t spoil her with too much love, Milli.”

“Love, no. Material possessions, yes. From now on, it’s one toy a month and then something big for holidays.”

“Okay, it’s a deal. Does that mean I can only bring you one thing a month, too?”

“Of course not.”

“But I might spoil you.”

She smiled and used his favorite phrase. “Ain’t damn likely.”

He carried Katy through the front door and shook his head when Milli reached out for her. “Shhh. I’ll take her on up.”

He laid her gently on the bed, fought with his imagination as he thought about Milli sleeping here every night, let his eyes take in the room in a sweeping glance, and eased Katy’s sandals off her feet. “Where’s her little gown?”

“Right here. And you don’t need to whisper. Once she’s asleep, a tornado could sweep through her crib and she’d never know it. She sleeps like you do,” she finished without looking at him.

He raised an eyebrow. “Oh, really?” So she did remember things about that night, too. He did sleep like the dead, and even more so after drinking too much.

“Yes, thank goodness she doesn’t snore.”

“Neither do I.”

“Oh, yes you do. Very loud.”

“Are we arguing again?” he asked as she slipped Katy’s red-checked sun dress over her head and put a cotton gown on her. “Now, Daddy will tuck you in,” he whispered softly as he carried her to the crib beside the bed.

Once he had her covered and had given her at least a dozen kisses, Milli followed him downstairs to the door.

“Thank you,” she said.

He wrapped his arm around her shoulder and pulled her along with him. “What? You weren’t going to walk me to the truck?”

“Beau, you don’t have to do this. I won’t stand in your way with Katy. I promise I’ll share. I won’t lie and say it’ll be easy, but it’s what is best for her. You don’t have to take the cow with the calf.”

He tilted her chin back and was mesmerized. “Milli, I happen to like the cow. I happen to have liked the cow very much from the first time I saw her and even liked her before I knew there was a calf. The cow was the best thing that ever happened to me. Why are you so defensive?”

“What we did… I’m not that kind of woman. I don’t just fall into bed with a man because he’s good-looking -”

“Oh, you think I’m handsome.”

“Beau!”

“Okay, this isn’t the time to make jokes. I know you’re not that kind of woman. I knew it that night, too, even as drunk and irresponsible as I was. I wasn’t so drunk that I didn’t know it was your first time. It surprised me, but we were both so… involved… so hot. I couldn’t have stopped if there had been a pistol stuck in my ear. I’d just have said for them to go ahead and blow my brains out, but to please wait until I finished the best night of my life. Katy is important to me. But so are you, and I think this is part of the courting process.” He leaned forward until his lips met hers.

The impact went from her lips to the pit of her stomach and down her jelly-filled legs to the Oklahoma dirt where she stood. She had the urge to reach out and hold on to his pickup fender just to keep from swooning. And that was crazier than a cross-eyed chicken at a coyote match. Because Milli Torres didn’t swoon for anyone. She was as independent as hell on wheels and no one ever touched her heart so deep that she saw stars. At least not until right now… and one other time a couple of years ago. But she’d just thought that was because it was the first time, and all women felt that way their first time.

He pulled her closer and closer to him until she was pressed against his chest so tightly she could hear the steady rhythm of his heartbeat, but he didn’t stop kissing her mouth, running his tongue deftly over her lips, tasting the last bits of Coke and dill pickles. Her

tongue met his in playful battle and she tasted the sweet peppermint gum he’d been chewing while the woodsy aftershave he wore filled her nostrils. She wished this part of the courting process could go on forever.

His hand fell down to cup one hip and pull her even closer yet.

“Mmmimm,” she groaned.

He broke the kiss but kept her in his arms. “Well, we seem to do that part of courting pretty good together. Good night, my Milli. I’ll call tomorrow, and remember, we’ve got a date Friday night. This time we’ll eat Italian or Mexican or whatever you like.”