Life After Wife (13 page)

“Woman, are you crazy? Metal posts won’t stop a wildfire,” Gus said.

“But they won’t burn to the ground and leave us with cattle scattered from here to Hades,” she said.

“You got that right. Y’all want a permanent job?” Gus turned around and asked the three men coming toward him.

“Bunkhouse rent is free. We can’t offer medical insurance right now, but we’ll pay time and a half for all over forty hours,” Elijah said.

Frankie nodded. “Can I move in tomorrow? Rent is up on my apartment, and I was about to move back in with my folks.”

“Yes, you can. You might have to clean it up, but there’s room for six hands. Take your pick of the rooms,” Elijah said.

“I’ll take a job, but I want to be up-front and honest. If my old job comes up, I’ll probably go back to it,” Kendall said.

“Fair enough,” Sophie said.

They both looked at Randy. He was the youngest of the three, graduating from high school the previous May. Short and stocky, he showed his Hispanic heritage in his dark hair, slightly toasted skin, and big brown eyes.

“I’m in if them two are. Six days a week. Off on Sunday?”

“Five and a half days a week. Off from noon on Saturday so y’all can do some two-steppin’ with your girlfriends or some squirrel huntin’,” Elijah said.

“Sounds good. I’ll get my gear and be here tomorrow mornin’. Gus, you goin’ to take us back to Baird or we goin’ to stand around here and jaw all night?” Randy asked.

“Go get in the truck and remember that I’m your boss, so if I want to jaw until daylight comes rollin’ in, I will, boy,” Gus teased.

Randy air-punched him on the arm and then hopped into the back of the truck. “Whoooeee, boys! We got us jobs for the winter. I betcha you two can’t keep up with me buildin’ fence. I betcha I can string that barbed wire tighter and faster than either one of you.”

“What are we bettin’?” Frankie, the best looking one of the crew asked. He had brown wavy hair and a face that reminded Sophie of a young Travis Tritt. She’d heard him play the guitar and sing when he worked in the hayfields in the summer and often wondered why the boy wasn’t in Nashville.

“Supper! Whoever does the most miles of fence a day don’t have to cook in the bunkhouse,” Randy said.

“I’ll do the cookin’,” Kendall told them. “I’d rather do it myself than take a chance on you two poisonin’ me.”

“We’ll supply the beef, and you are welcome to whatever is left in the garden. There’re peppers, cucumbers, and potatoes,” Sophie said. “Freezer is full of beef from the last time we butchered around here. Help yourselves.”

Kendall chuckled. “Now I’m sure I’ll do the cookin’. Them two would burn up a good steak and make jerky out of a decent roast. We’ll all be here tomorrow mornin’, ma’am.” He tipped his hat at her and hopped into the bed of the truck with Randy.

“You goin’ to let any one of them ride up front?” Elijah asked Gus.

He shook his head. “Dirty as they are? No, I ain’t. Besides, it’ll teach them that I’m foreman and that has special rights.”

Elijah was still laughing when Gus fired up the engine and drove away. He slung an arm around Sophie’s shoulder, and together they walked toward the house, leaving the tractors parked.

“We really did it,” he said again. “We faced down our first disaster and came through it. We’re a good team, woman.”

“Yes, we are,” she said. “And I get the first shower.”

“Hey, wait a minute.”

She shrugged off his arm. “Ladies first.”

“We are a team. We are not a couple,” he protested.

“I don’t care what you call it. You already had a shower.”

He set his heels at the edge of the porch. “I’m twice as dirty and grimy now as when I got into the shower earlier. I shut off the air conditioner to keep the smoke out of the cab.”

“So did I, and I’m having first shower,” she said.

“You put up a fence. I’m putting in a second bathroom, and it’s going to be right off my bedroom,” he said.

“I like that idea, then you won’t be cluttering up my bathroom.” She opened the door and stepped inside the cool house.

He followed her and gasped when the cold air hit his sweaty skin. “Me, cluttering? It’s not me who leaves makeup strewn on the counter and panty hose drying on the shower curtain.”

She went straight for the bathroom. “Well I certainly hope that you don’t leave makeup and panty hose in the bathroom.” She giggled as she shut the door.

“Women!” He threw up his hands.

“What did you say?” she yelled through the door.

“I said that women are horrible creatures,” he yelled back.

“We were made from a man’s rib. That’s pretty small, so if we are horrible when we…”

“Hush!” he yelled.

She swung the door open and walked right up to him. “Don’t you ever tell me to hush. I’ll talk when I want.”

He leaned forward, cupped her cheeks in his hands, and kissed her soundly on the lips. She wrapped her arms around his neck and tangled her hands in his hair. When he pulled away, she took two steps back and reached up to see if her mouth was as warm as it felt. Surprisingly, her mouth was cool to the touch, but the tingles playing chase up and down her backbone were anything but cold.

She turned abruptly and went back into the bathroom, where she sat down on the edge of the tub for a long time before she was able to talk her weak knees into standing up.

It didn’t help one bit that Elijah was whistling the Sammy Kershaw tune, “Don’t Go Near the Water,” that she’d been listening to earlier!

Sophie heard the bathroom door close behind Elijah when he went for his shower. She heard the water running, heard him singing “Hello Darlin’,” an old Conway Twitty tune. So he liked country music. That didn’t make him…she couldn’t even think the words. She reached up and touched her lips again. They weren’t warm, but they should have been from the way her heart kept skipping beats.

The cell phone on her bedside table rang, the tone telling her that it was either Kate or Fancy. She picked it up, not caring which one it was so long as they took her mind off Elijah.

“Did the fire come close to you? I saw it on the evening news. Looked like it was pretty close,” Kate said.

“Close enough to blister the paint off the tractor I was plowing a firebreak with, and close enough that when the chopper dumped a bucket of water, it splashed all over my tractor,” Sophie said.

“Mercy! Are y’all all right?”

“We saved all the cattle. Gus brought a crew and put the cattle in the pens and the front yard. They’re bawling like crazy, but they’re not burned. Tomorrow we’ll turn the ones loose that we aren’t selling. Kind of strange way of doing things, pen them up
and then turn out what don’t sell, rather than herding the ones for sale into the pens. I’m replacing fence posts starting the day after the sale. We’ve hired three guys who’ll be in the bunkhouse full time, and at least if we have another fire, the posts will be metal and they won’t burn to the ground. The old wood ones are just charred real bad, we didn’t actually lose any of them and…”

“Sophie!” Kate raised her voice.

“What?”

“What really happened? You are talking too fast and furious for you. I know you, darlin’. You are the smart one of the three of us, and you keep your words close to home. Now what happened?”

“Elijah kissed me,” Sophie blurted out.

“And?” Kate giggled.

“Don’t laugh at me.”

“I’m not! I’m just not surprised. You two are destined for each other.”

Sophie gasped. “You’re crazy, girl! You and Fancy both think because you found your three magic words that I’ll find mine. Well, a single kiss doesn’t make a life after wife situation.”

“You are so right. How many does it take? Maybe you should go knock on his door and kiss him again to see if two kisses do the trick,” Kate teased.

“Goodnight, Kate,” Sophie said.

“I think the line was ‘Goodnight, Irene’.” Kate had started to giggle again.

“Then good-bye, Kate. See you in a couple of days.” Sophie returned the phone back to her nightstand.

Elijah was singing Conway Twitty’s “Tight Fittin’ Jeans.” He sang about a real lady, who normally wore pearls and high
heels, going to a bar so she could be a good ole boy’s girl. That he liked country music shocked Sophie. Riding a big Harley, wearing a do-rag with that little ponytail hanging down the back—it all pointed to hard rock, not old classic country.

She finally went to sleep but dreamed of blazes that reached from earth to heaven. She was on one side and Elijah was on the other. She could smell the smoke, feel the heat as it singed her hair, and hear him singing “Hello Darlin’.” She wanted to strangle him until he turned blue, and then the big Harley came through the fire unscathed with Elijah riding it. He pointed to the passenger’s seat behind him and extended a hand. She took it, hopped on, wrapped her hands around him, and in seconds they were riding beside a bubbling creek with bright green grass growing right up to the edge. The moon hung low in the sky, and stars twinkled around it like subjects bowing before a king.

Hard knocking on the door awoke her with a jerk. She threw a pillow over her head and groaned, but the rapping continued. She threw the pillow at the door and muttered. It went on. Fully awake, she looked at the clock and gasped. It was nine o’clock. The caterers would be there at ten, and her new crew was probably already in the bunkhouse.

She slung the door open to find Elijah standing there with a big grin on his handsome face.

“You going to sleep all day or do you want to help supervise the caterers?” he drawled.

“My alarm didn’t go off,” she said weakly.

Looking at him in those jeans, scuffed up boots, and T-shirt caused her breath to catch in her chest. Getting a whiff of Stetson aftershave sent her heart into double-time. Then she noticed that his ponytail was gone.

“What did you do to your hair?” she asked.

“Ran into Baird this morning and got a haircut. Figured it might look a little more respectable for a rancher,” he said.

She was slightly disappointed. “You going to keep it cut all the time now?”

“No, ma’am. Probably get it cut once a year for the sale. Don’t see much sense in all that expense and trouble through the year. Now, answer my question. You going to sleep, or are you getting up and having some breakfast with me?”

Sophie yawned. “I’m awake. You haven’t eaten?”

“Nope. I told you I got a haircut. Stopped and got us some doughnuts for breakfast. Coffee is made. How long is it going to take you to get to the table?”

“Give me five minutes,” she said.

He shut the door and she fell back on the bed. Life was certainly not boring with Elijah Jones in the house!

She gave herself one minute to think about how he’d looked without his ponytail, his black hair feathered back perfectly. Handsome didn’t begin to describe him that morning, leaning on the doorjamb, a smile making his blue eyes twinkle. She could think of a dozen other words that did, and “sexy” topped out at number one.

She hopped up and grabbed a pair of jeans from the closet, then put them back on the hanger. It was going to be another hot day, so she chose a pair of denim shorts that barely reached her knee and a sleeveless chambray shirt that buttoned up the front. She swept her unruly curls up into a messy ponytail and put on a pair of socks before stomping her feet down into her oldest work boots.

The table was set with saucers, coffee cups, apple juice, and a dozen doughnuts stacked up pyramid-style in the middle
of the table when she reached the kitchen. She pulled out a chair and sat down, picking a maple-frosted doughnut from the top of the stack.

Elijah grabbed a glazed doughnut at the same time, and their arms brushed against each other. Her bare arm barely touching his created a stirring down deep in his heart that he’d never experienced before. He’d dated women, lots of them, but not a one ever affected him like Sophie McSwain.

Sophie bit into the maple doughnut so she wouldn’t have to say a word. The kiss wasn’t a big Angus bull sitting at the table with them, creating awkwardness between them. But it had opened the floodgates for emotions that she thought she’d buried for good. Just his touch on her arm had sent tingles up and down her spine. Yes, sir, the quicker she could get this sale over with and go trailer shopping, the better.

“Barn looks really good. Guys have moved their gear into the bunkhouse, and they’re out there giving it one more good sweeping before the caterers arrive this morning. We should be set up for finger foods and drinks when the first buyers come to look over the stock at noon,” Elijah said.

Sophie knew all of that, except for the part about the three hired hands moving into the bunkhouse at the crack of dawn and sweeping out the barn, but she liked to listen to Elijah talk. His slow drawl sounded as if it was born in Texas or maybe Louisiana. She realized that she knew so little about him, and in the same instant, that she wanted to know everything.

“Where were you born and raised?”

Elijah chuckled. “Well, that sure came out of left field. I figured that you’d stomp your way to the kitchen fussin’
about that kiss we shared and then give me what for about my plans all day.”