Lucky In Love (20 page)

“You got two hours to stop that.”

She kissed the end of his nose and fluttered a butterfly kiss across his cheek. “In two hours, darlin’, we’d be doin’ more than this. Get on your work boots and jeans and a T-shirt. We’re going out to look at my herd and discuss what we want to do with it.”

He wrapped his arms around her. “I’d rather stay here and start a new herd.”

She was on her feet before he could kiss her again. “Me, too, but it won’t happen in this house, trust me.”

She gave him the royal tour of the ranch, introducing him to all the hired help along the way, and showed him her herd of registered white-faced cattle.

“What do you think?”

“Good cattle. Jim wouldn’t cull a one of them.”

“We can transport them to the Bar M without too much trouble. Take a couple of trips, but the ranch owns two cattle semis.”

“We’ll section off a chunk of land for them and keep them separate from the Angus. You’ve got some prize stock here, lady,” he said.

“I’m lookin’ at prize stock. Those are just cows,” she teased.

“Much more talk like that and honey, I’m going to do a Indian rain dance right here,” he said.

“What?”

“Rain, honey. I see a barn right over there, and if it was raining too hard for us to get back to the ranch…?”

“Can you show me how to do that dance?” she asked.

Her father drove up on a four-wheeler before he could answer and talk went to cattle and ranching. Before long they were ushered back to the house to get ready for the party. The band had arrived and the first few strands of music were drifting across the yard from the barn, when he heard another rap on his door, and opened it to find Milli standing before him in the same lace dress she had worn to the wedding. Her hair was up and he gasped, knowing if he blinked even for a minute, she would be gone like a puff of smoke on a clear, sunny day.

He had part of the buttons fastened on his shirt. Her fingers strayed to the soft fur on his chest. Surely nothing could go wrong at a Torres party, but she’d thought the same thing the previous week. Everything was perfect and nothing could ever make her have a single doubt again. Then there was Jennifer in the shadows with her hands all over Beau, and for a moment, the old fears had returned with a vengeance.

“Let me help you with those buttons. Now, you look just like one of those good-lookin’ men on the Marlboro commercials in the magazines. All you need is your horse and a felt hat. I better go polish my six-gun. All these female cousins of mine are going to see a tall, blond feller and make a play for you. I’ll need something to keep them at bay.”

“You mean there’s more just like you? Is there one who’s not so blasted stubborn? Maybe I’d be willin’ to work out a deal.”

“Over my dead body, cowboy. You look cross-eyed at one of those girls and I’ll scratch her eyes out and shoot you graveyard dead. Either you belong to me or you belong to no one.”

“Sounds like you better chase your pretty little butt on out to the barn and get the branding iron and heat it up. Women-folks see a brand on me, they might not be in the mood for rustling.”

“If they think they can rustle what belongs to me, they’ll end up just like your sweet little Amanda. On her scraggly old rump in the dust. Now let’s go. If we stay in here too long Andy and James will come bustin’ in the door with a shot gun and a preacher.”

“Sounds like a winner to me. We wouldn’t have to wait another day,” he said.

And I wouldn’t have to worry that someone might still come along and steal you right out from under my nose There’s always the old “luck” in everything but not lucky in love” thing sitting on my shoulder, and I’m scared out of my boots that I’m going to lose you, my darling.

He took her arm and they went out to the barn.

“And now here comes our honored couple,” the lead singer said into the microphone and everyone clapped loudly when they walked through the doors.

Beau was surprised to see so many people. The barn was filled to capacity and those on the dance floor parted to let Milli lead him into the center.

“Milli has requested a special song to dance with her fiancé on this night. So here it is, an old song by Trisha Yearwood. She says it’s the song that made her realize she was about to make the biggest mistake of her entire life. Beau, you are a lucky man,” the female lead singer said.

Milli looked up into his eyes as they danced to “How Do I Live” and there wasn’t anyone else in the barn. They were alone in their own world where only two hearts beat in unison. At the end of the song, she kissed him gently. Beau really was branded. Milli Torres had her mark on him forever.

The applause brought them back down from the clouds to reality and they bowed gracefully as the band started to play the song one more time just like she’d told them. She wrapped her arms tightly around his neck and snuggled her face into his chest where she sang softly to him as they swayed gently to the music one more time.

When the song ended the band broke into a lively number by Shania Twain, “Any Man of Mine.”

Milli stepped back and shook her finger at him as she sang loudly with the singer and he crossed his arms across his chest. She danced around him, teasing him with her movements until all he could think about was taking the gypsy-looking hussy to bed.

The singer finished the song and said, “Folks, John says the food is ready at the back side of the barn now. So dance if you want to, or line up at the buffet. We’ll keep playing. If you’re really good, you can dance and eat at the same time.”

Milli took his hand. “Come on, you’ve got a lot of folks to meet. You’re a good sport, Beau. Thanks for the dances.”

“Thank you for the first two. I’m not so sure about the last one. We’ll see how good I can walk a line. I’ll probably set my heels. I’ve got a determined streak and don’t like the idea of being henpecked.”

“If I could henpeck you, I wouldn’t want you.”

Just after midnight, Beau was dancing with his future mother-in-law, but his eyes kept going back to Milli. He’d never get tired of looking at her. The grace with which she moved. The way she intermingled with family and friends. She was truly a rancher’s wife.

First she talked to her older brother. Her feisty niece, Casey, said something that made her toss her head back and laugh. Then she visited with Laura, her sister-in-law, and from the hand movements he figured they must be discussing the wedding dress. Milli shook her head no when Laura made signs like a big white dress, and Laura looked toward Angelina. Then a man slipped inside the barn. Beau couldn’t tell if he was an uncle or a cousin, but Milli bristled when she saw him.

Evidently he’d made her angry about something, because if looks could have killed, a bullet would have shot out of her eyes and entered his heart in a split second. He nodded toward the door and she nodded. He started across the barn to her and she followed. When she reached his side, he said something and reached for her arm. She shook it off like so much dirt and followed him out the door.

“Who’s that?” Beau asked Angelina.

She just caught the back side of a well-cut western suit and the familiar boots with silver heels and tips. She swore and stomped her foot. Her face was as pale as a half-Mexican lady could get. “Good Lord. What is he doing here? Damn it all to hell and back anyway. Pardon me, Beau. I’ve got to talk to my sons.”

“I think maybe I better go see what is going on.”.

“Maybe so. But I think I’ll still talk to James and Andy.” She was off like a flash of lightning.

Beau went out the open doors at the front of the barn and stopped, letting his eyes adjust to the darkness after being inside all evening. He heard Milli and it didn’t take an expert to know she was so mad she could commit homicide. She was standing beside a black Porsche and the man was only a foot away from her. Beau eased over closer so he could hear the words as well as the tone.

“I made a mistake two years ago, Milli’ the man said. ”I wasn’t thinking straight. My father said it was time for me to marry and I should look for someone with dignity to bring to our family. He said I could play around as long as I wanted with whomever I pleased, but when it came time to choose a wife, she had to be a virgin. And I had to be married by the time I was thirty. I chose you and it made him happy. But I wasn’t ready for marriage. I still had a lot of wild oats to sow. I’m ready now and I’ll do whatever you say. Trust me, darling. We’ll make a wonderful couple, and I’ll adopt the little girl you have. I won’t ever mention that you weren’t ready to settle down either, and that you had a few wild oats, too.”

“You can go to hell, Matthew,” she told him emphatically.

How could she have ever loved him? He looked like a slimy slug standing there promising her the moon.

He edged close enough to her to run his hand across her cheek. “Oh, come on, darling. I can give you more than that poor old Okie.”

A low rumble of disgust rose in her throat. “Don’t you touch me.”

“You like for me to kiss you. Evidently by that child you have, you like a lot more, too. All you had to do was tell me you wanted sex before we were married. I would have gladly taken care of it. If you’d just told me you were already sexually active, you could have been in the motel with me every night. Father must have been wrong when he had the investigators check out your background. Got to say one thing. You are sly and very sneaky, because everything he found said you were pure as the driven snow.”

She opened her fist just before it made contact with his jaw or it would have broken the bone. “I said don’t touch me. Now get off my land and don’t come back. It was over the day I gave you back the ring at the motel room. Remember, Matthew? You had another woman in the room and were engaged to me. And don’t talk about Beau like that. He’s my daughter’s father, and, honey, he can make my body sing when all you could possibly hope to do is make it puke.”

“You are a fool and you’ll be sorry.”

Beau stepped out of the shadows. “The lady said for you to leave, and I think maybe that’s the best thing you can do before you really get into trouble.”

Andy and James appeared from the, darkness.

“Got a problem here?” James asked.

James didn’t stop walking until he was inches from Matthew’s nose. “What in the hell are you doing here tonight? You’re not welcome on this ranch. I heard you were getting married next week. What’s happened? Another girl find out how much she can trust you?”

“I’m leaving. But when the going gets rough, remember what you could have had,” he said flippantly to Milli.

“Sure, I will. And I’ll drop down on my knees every morning and give thanks I didn’t get any part of you.”

Beau turned on her just like she did him the week before. “Now what have you got to say for yourself? Why did you come out here in the dark with that bucket of worthless manure?”

She looked up into his eyes in the moonlight remembering saying the same thing to him when she discovered him with Jennifer.

“I don’t have a damned thing to say for myself, but I’m glad I came out here. There will never be a time when I look back and wonder what it would have been like to have married him. I happen to be in love with you, Beau, and that’s a fact.”

He kissed the tip of her nose. “Then let’s go back to our party.”

Her mother met them inside the barn. “What’s happened? Your brothers said you took care of it?”

“I did, Momma, and he won’t be back. Now I’m taking this man out on the dance floor and dance with him until the last song is sung. I think I might be in love with him, Momma. When do you know for sure?”

“Oh, get out of here, and quit teasing your momma. No, wait a minute, Milli. Beau, go find a taco or an enchilada and get some strength to dance. I need to talk to Milli a minute.”

“What is it, Momma?”

“I think it is time you two had some time together,” she said. “You got everything all turned around in your lives. A baby before you know each other, and then a courtship with a baby underfoot. How many times have you been off away from everyone all by yourselves since you found each other again?”

“Only a couple of times.”

“I see,” her mother nodded. “And what kind of honeymoon are you planning?”

“Well, this is a bad time of year for a real honeymoon. Maybe later we’ll get away for a day or two, but Katy…”

“An affair before you know each other. A baby before he even knows your name. Everything is backwards, but then who am I to judge? Maybe this is what it took to bring you together finally. I think it is time for you to have a few days with just you two. Do you like him?”

“I love him,” Milli said.

“I didn’t ask you if you loved him. I asked you if you liked him. Love is important but like is more important. If you don’t like him, all the love in the world can’t make you have a good relationship. We are keeping Katy for a few days, and tomorrow morning you can get in that little plane of yours and fly down to the cabin on the shore in Mexico. Stay with him, with no one else around from Sunday until Wednesday, and then come home. If you’ve got stars in your eyes, I’ll know you like him as well as love him. If you fly home and time and familiarity has killed the love, then it wasn’t meant to be.”

“Momma, you’re telling me to go on a honeymoon before the wedding.”

“Exactly. You had a baby before the wedding. Why not have the honeymoon now and make sure?”

Milli kissed her on the cheek. “Thank you, Momma. I love you.”

“And we’ll have a big wedding?”

Milli threw back her head and laughed. “So I’m to pay for the honeymoon? Yes, Momma, you plan whatever you want… except the dress. I’m wearing something very simple. I already have a daughter and besides, Beau is wearing jeans, and I don’t want to overdo it. Flowers, catering, band, whatever else, I leave in your hands.. if I bring him back alive.”

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MILLI SET THE PLANE DOWN ON A CRUDE RUNWAY OF hard, baked earth right next to a small cabin on the water’s edge. At first Beau couldn’t believe they were actually going away for a few days, and he couldn’t believe her mother was the one who insisted they have some time alone. But there they were with a rough wooden cabin and a lot of water in front of them. No baby between them. Even though he adored his daughter, he had to pinch himself to realize he had three days alone with Milli.

“You flew better this time. You didn’t even make your knuckles white squeezing the hell out of the arm of the seat. A few more times and you’ll want to take over the controls for me.”

“Not on your life, darlin’. Pinch me. I know this is a dream for sure.”

He held his arm toward her. She grabbed a chunk of skin and pinched hard.

He jerked it back. “Ouch!”

“Just doing what you said. Are going to sit here forever, or are we going inside the cabin and make love?”

She was out of the plane and walking before he could get his seat belt undone.

“Wait a minute,” he called out.

He dropped the suitcases at the front door

She fished in her purse for a key and opened the door.

He picked her up and carried her over the threshold. “I think this is what they do in the movies and, even though the paperwork isn’t finished yet, this is our honeymoon.” He kicked the door shut with the back of his boot. The kiss began when the door slammed and didn’t end until he laid her on the bed.

“Paperwork?” she asked.

“Yes, paperwork. In my heart I’m already married to you and have been for a while, Miss Camilla Torres. We just have to have a marriage ceremony and do the paperwork to make you Mrs. Beau Luckadeau.” He kicked off his boots.

“Well, kind sir, you don’t intend to waste any time, now do you?”

“No, ma’am. You going to unbutton this shirt or you want me to do it?”

His blue eyes were hungry and his body already hard in anticipation. She looked him in the eye and started unsnapping his shirt - slowly, a snap at a time, kissing bare skin with every snap. He moaned and began to undress her just as slowly, tugging her jean shorts down to her ankles, tossing them on the floor and kissing his way back up to her belly button.

She shuddered.

Somehow he shed his shirt and socks and finished undressing her without breaking the kiss. His tongue slipped between her full, sexy lips and found its soul mate waiting. She tugged at his hips, her body begging him to make the aching need go away.

Two starving souls searching for fulfillment found it again. Just like in the back bedroom of a trailer. Just like in the hay. They fell asleep in each other’s arms, sleeping that deep, contented rest that comes only after weeks of pure sexual starvation are satisfied.

Her stomach woke her up, growling and threatening real starvation if she didn’t find something to feast upon other than Beau’s muscular, sensual body. She snuggled closer to him and kicked at the thin sheet tangled up at their feet. She tried to go back to sleep and ignore her stomach’s demands. She was too tired to crawl out of a love nest and cook lunch.

“Hungry?” he said.

“Starving. Momma said she’d have someone stock the cabinets and the fridge but I’d rather do this all day.” She nibbled on his earlobe and hoped her growling stomach would be quiet.

He sat up on the edge of the bed just about the time a spider floated down from a web on the ceiling to land beside Milli’s hand. “This kind of activity makes me ravenous. Let’s make lunch and then lie on the beach like honeymooners.”

She opened her eyes and saw the big, black furry bug at the same time.

“Kill it!” she gasped.

“What? My superwoman who can do anything but knit is afraid of a plain old house spider?”

“Kill it now!” she demanded.

He smashed it and then gathered her shaking body close to his. “Hey, it’s just a bug. It’s more scared of you than you are of it.”

“Wanna bet? I hate them sumbitches. I’d rather square off with a coiled rattler than a spider. They’re only slightly smaller than King Kong and meaner than a grizzly with an ingrown toenail.”

“Okay, honey, I’ll kill the spiders and you fly the airplane and we’ll get along fine. Now, let’s see what’s hiding in the refrigerator and make lunch.”

She slung her legs off the side of the bed and opened one of the suitcases. She pulled on a pair of bikini panties and a kimono-style, black silk robe, sashed the middle, and padded barefoot to the refrigerator.

The whole cabin was one room, with a bed and dresser on the west end and the kitchen area on the east end, and a small sitting space between the two. It was furnished with leftovers from her Jiminez grandparents’ home. A floral love seat, two mismatched recliners, a four-poster bed and a dresser that didn’t match. Milli loved every piece and had childhood memories of each one.

Beau slipped into a pair of underwear and cut-off jean shorts and followed her.

“Eggs, bacon, cheese, onions, peppers, picante, tortillas.., even if they are packaged and not fresh. We’ll have breakfast burritos and then stretch out in the sun for the afternoon and see if! like you.”

He pulled out a cane-bottomed chair and sat down at the small kitchen table. “Like me? I love you and you want to see if you like me after what we just did?”

“Yep, Momma says these three days are to find out if I like you. She says it’s evident! love you, but a marriage can’t be built on love alone. We have to like each other. You earned a bunch of brownie points when you killed the spider, so I think I may like you. We’ll go to the beach for a while and see if we continue to like each other. Who knows what might happen? We usually end up fighting every time we get together with no one else around.” She cracked the eggs and waited for the butter to melt in an iron skillet she put on the stove.

“I see. Well, bring on a horde of spiders and let me redeem myself in the like business. What can I do to help? I’m a pretty damn good cook myself. I can make omelets to die for.”

She leaned forward and the belt of the robe came undone, showing her naked body from the top of her bikini underpants to her neck. She stopped what she was doing, straddled his lap, and kissed him soundly.

“Someday, darlin’, I’ll let you cook, but right now you just sit here and regain your strength. I may need to have another session in bed before we go out to the beach. So, do you want to argue about this cooking?”

“No, ma’am,” he grinned.

She kissed him and very, very slowly went back to the stove.

“How far are we from civilization?” His voice was only a little hoarse. That was good. He was afraid he’d be unable to do anything but growl and drag her back to bed.

“About two city blocks, but don’t worry, unless we want to see people, we won’t see anyone. Momma’s parents own this place and they live a little ways over the dunes back there.” She nodded toward the north. “We might be gracious enough before we leave on Wednesday morning to go thank them for the supplies. That is, if we like each other by then. If we don’t and we decide to call off the whole marriage, then it’s best you don’t meet them. Momma might be understanding about a honeymoon before the wedding, but Grandpoppy Jiminez would probably shoot you or stick a knife in your liver if he thought you’d just slept with me all these days and didn’t intend to many me. Now, how hot do you like your eggs?”

“You can’t make them too hot for me.”

“Oh, yeah? Well, big boy, we’ll see if I can’t make you eat your words. Habaneros have brought many a good Anglo to his knees.”

“What the hell is a habanero?”

“It’s the hottest pepper in the whole world,” she said.

“Ain’t nothing hotter than jalapeño.”

“We’ll see.”

Beau braced himself, but he was ready for a mouthful of spicy, wonderful eggs wrapped up in a tortilla shell. What he bit into was a mouthful of pure hell. His eyes watered, his nose ran, and his stomach came close to sending the first mouthful right back up.

Milli sat across from him and watched his expressions intently. “Hot enough for you?”

He yanked up the napkin and wiped his eyes, then blew his nose loudly on a paper towel he found on the cabinet. When he found his voice again, hiding somewhere down deep, next to his rebellious stomach, he coughed and sputtered.

He exhaled and sucked in a mouthful of air to cool his burning tongue, then grabbed up the glass of tea she’d set on the place mat before him.

“Guess maybe it is hot enough.” She kept eating.

He nodded because he couldn’t force enough wind from his fiery esophagus to utter a single word. Even the tea didn’t seem to soothe the blistery feeling.

She buttered one side of a tortilla and rolled it up like a crepe before she handed it to him. “Try a bite of this. It’ll help, I promise.”

He knew she was lying. Nothing would help. Nothing short of major surgery to replace the first degree burns from his tongue to his colon.

Oh, my god! When this stuff hits bottom it’s going to set me on fire again.

It took all the trust he had to believe her. He bit off a chunk of the tortilla and was amazed at the soothing effect it had on its way down to his stomach.

“It’s the butter. It takes the fire out. Here, give me your burrito and I’ll eat it. I made one with jalapeño for you.”

He finally found his voice. “That was the hottest sumbitch in the world. I’m not so sure I do like you right now. You damn near killed me, woman.”

She pointed her fork at him. “Don’t be calling me woman. I’m Milli or sugar or honey or sweetheart, but I’m not ‘woman.’ That’s what white trash call their wives. Pretty hot little sucker, ain’t it?” She bit off a second bite of the burrito and then followed it with a piece of buttered tortilla.

“I ain’t about to fight with anyone who can eat something that hot. Where do those things grow? On the back forty in hell?”

“Somewhere close to that, I’m sure. And I ain’t about to fight with anyone who can whup a big mean spider, so I guess we aren’t in trouble, yet. Chow down. I promise I didn’t even cut up the jalapeño with the same knife I used on the habanero, so it’s mild.”

“There is a heaven!” He took a bite of the burrito she put in front of him. “I’d begun to think there was only hell.”

She grinned.

She remembered when she was a little girl at her grandparents house on this same property and they introduced her to the habanero pepper. She thought she would suffocate to death before she chased it with a buttered tortilla. She thought about the hacienda where they were probably taking an afternoon siesta right now: her very brown grandfather, who was full-blooded Mexican, and her grandmother, who at the age of seventy-two was as blonde as Beau and had eyes just as blue.

He refilled their tea glasses. “Penny for your thoughts.”

“Remember, pennies don’t buy my thoughts. They cost you a helluva lot more than that.”

“I see where Casey gets her sweet little feminine way of saying things,” he laughed.

“Got a problem with the way I talk?”

“No, ma’am. You ready to swim off some of these calories?”

“Peppers ain’t got no calories. That’s the one good thing about them. Eat them all day and never worry about weight. Do you think I’m fat?”

“What in the world brought that on? Of course you’re not fat.”

“I told you the story already. I was in the sixth grade and a couple of blonde-haired snooty little girls called me a fat Mexican bitch. I got expelled from school for three days.”

“Why did you get expelled because they were rude?” He led her to the door, picking up a couple of beach towels from a hook beside the door on the way.

“Because I knocked Myrna’s front tooth out and broke Lisa’s nose.” She said it as if she was telling him the sky was blue and the clouds were white. “And I decided right then nobody was ever going to call me that name again. You really don’t think I’m fat? Wait a minute. I’ve got to put my bikini on.”

“Why, you can’t tan in the nude?”

She dropped the robe in the middle of the floor and stretched a bright yellow bikini top on. “Not on your life. If Grandpoppy decided to sneak a peek at us with his binoculars I’d better have something on my body, even if it’s a bikini. Besides, stretch marks from the baby aren’t all gone.”

He trailed a row of kisses down to her naval. “Hey, you’re beautiful, stretch marks and all. Sure you want to swim?”

“No, but we’d better at least put in an appearance on the beach.”

They laid on their stomachs, holding hands across the warm sand separating them, for an hour. He was glad, as he laid there in the warm sand with the hot sun beating down upon his back, that things had worked out the way they did.

“Hey, tell me about your grandparents who live just two blocks back there.”

Her grandmother had told Milli the love story so many times, Milli knew it by heart. She wondered if her grandfather ever tricked her English grandmother with a habanero pepper, and chuckled at the memory of Beau’s blue eyes swimming in tears.

“What’s so funny?”

“Nothing, darlin’. I was just thinkin’ that if you get hateful with me and start calling me ‘woman,’ I can always just dump a few habaneros in your supper.”

He picked her up and waded out into the water. “You’re a vixen. Say you’ll never, ever be mean to me or I’ll dunk you.”

She wrapped her arms tightly around his neck. “And when you do, you’ll go down with me. Where I go, you shall go. My dunking shall be your dunking.” She intoned like a preacher at a revival.

“Then we shall go together.” He fell backwards with her and water covered them both.

She came up spluttering. “And now we are no more Methodists, but full-fledged Baptists. And my hair will be a fright for the rest of the day. We’ll see if you like a wicked sea witch by the end. Which reminds me - I forgot to tell you, there is no phone, no television, no radio, no CD player, or anything else from the outside world in the cabin. I do believe there are a few cattle books left there by Grandpoppy, who must have a little reprieve from boring sex when he brings my grandmother here.”