Authors: Carolyn Brown
He kissed her neck and saw a glimmer of light behind the cabin. “Well, maybe I won’t get so bored I have to read old cattle magazines. Don’t look now, but I think he’s checking to see if you have on your bikini.”
She wiggled closer to him and saw the light reflecting. So one or both of them couldn’t wait to see what the new grandson-in-law looked like. She bet her grandmother was dancing a ring around herself as she looked at this good-looking blond giant. She’d wanted a blond, blue-eyed son so badly, and all she got was a house full of dark-haired beautiful daughters.
“You were going to tell me about them,” Beau reminded her.
“It’s a love story with a bittersweet ending. Grandmother came from Rio County, Texas. That’s one of the border counties over in Texas. Anyway she came to the University of Mexico to study Spanish. She made friends with my grandfather’s sister and went home with her for a weekend and there was her older brother. She says they were both thunderstruck. She says he looked like a darker version of Clark Gable and he says she looked just like a goddess with her blonde hair and blue eyes.”
“Blue eyes?” Beau was stunned.
“Yes, blue eyes. They were in love, but do you know what it was like in the ‘40s for a rich, white Texas girl to fall in love with a full-blooded Mexican boy? Even if his parents were every bit as rich as hers? I can tell you, it wasn’t easy. I guess her father came close to a heart attack when she told them she was marrying a Mexican. He disowned her and refused to have her name mentioned in his house ever again. So they lived in Mexico, right back there for about eight years; then her parents both died in a plane crash and, since she was the only child, the property was hers. So she and my Grandpoppy took all five girls to Rio County to raise them in the United States. They kept their place here and came for vacations and holidays. Now that they’re retired they spend a lot of time here and less in Rio County. Momma is the oldest. You met some of the sisters at the party Saturday night. When Momma went to college in the panhandle, she met Daddy and they settled down right there. Aunt Gloria met a man in college a couple of years after that. His parents were of the hippy generation and never married. Anyway,! guess Grandpoppy like to have died when he found out Uncle Jim was illegitimate. I figured he’d go up in smoke over Katy, but he didn’t. I guess after Grandmother set him straight about Uncle Jim’s heritage, it didn’t matter about Katy so much.”
“I sure wouldn’t want Katy dating some lowlife, either.”
“Hey, Uncle Jim is a medical doctor now. He’s not a lowlife, even if his mother is a little eccentric and never got married,” she snipped back.
“Well -” he snapped.
“And Katy is illegitimate, too. Or had you forgotten?”
“She won’t be for long. Besides that’s not what I asked. What changed his mind?”
“Grandmother reminded him about what happened to them and he straightened up pretty quick. I guess Grandpoppy didn’t want to lose a daughter.”
“Smart man. I can’t imagine doing anything to lose Katy.”
Milli resisted the urge to wave at them. “Now stand up gently and carry me back to the cabin, kissing me all the way. Let’s at least give them something to make a long distance call back to west Texas about. It would be a shame if they missed their siesta and didn’t see anything. Make it look just like a scene from the movies. Betcha we can hear them sighing if you do.”
He rose to his full height then swooped her up with one arm to hug her close to his chest. Then as if she were no more than a feather pillow, he picked her up dramatically and kissed her long and sensuously as he carried her to the porch. If they turned their heads just right both of them imagined they really could hear sighs.
“That’s enough. That should fry the telephone wires between here and Texas. Bet they’re racing to the house to see who gets to talk first. And Grandmother will be in hog heaven when she tells them how beautiful you. are.”
His eyes never left her face as he reached around and unhooked the top of her bikini. “It’ll be enough when I say it’s enough. Besides, they might be waiting out there to see if’n we come back out and they’ll know it was all a farce.”
“Was it a farce, Beau? It felt pretty damned real to me.”
“Darlin’, everything between the two of us is real, and right. Even a little exaggeration for your grandparents is real, and don’t you ever doubt it.”
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BEAU FOLLOWED THE PREACHER FROM THE BACK DOOR of the sale barn to the platform. All five of his brothers walked slowly behind him. James, who was in charge of the music, put a tape into the stereo system and Conway Twitty’s gravelly voice came through singing “The Rose.” Three of his sisters-in-law, and both of Milli’s brothers’ wives, appeared at the front door of the barn. All of them had been bridesmaids several times and they floated down the aisle with grace and dignity even in their flannel shirts, jeans, and sneakers. Then Casey, who was standing in for Milli, appeared at the door on the arm of John Torres.
An hour later the wedding rehearsal was over. They practiced the whole thing twice with Milli watching from the front row of folding chairs. The entire building had been transformed from a cattle sale barn to a wedding chapel. The walls were literally draped with thousands of yards of ivory illusion. Hurricane lamps burned brightly on all the tables already laid with ivory lace tablecloths, and tomorrow the florist would bring fresh roses, freesia, and trailing English ivy to encircle the lamps. Huge pew bows with silk roses held drapes of tulle from the balcony where buyers usually looked down upon the cattle being offered for sale.
“Well, son, this is sure enough a transformation.” Milli’s maternal grandmother took Beau’s arm and smiled at him, still in awe that she finally had a relative who looked like her. And even more so that in the past half century, society had changed enough that two cultures could meet in the middle of this barn tomorrow night, and all that would be offered would be blessings and love.
“Yes, ma’am.” He searched for Milli in a sea of dark hair and every shade of blond in the world.
“So did you decide you like each other?” The grandmother’s blue eyes glittered.
“Yes, ma’am,” Beau smiled. “But there was a moment there when I wasn’t too sure when I was trying to figure out if she’d plumb killed me graveyard dead with that damn hot pepper.”
Grandmother Jiminez laughed loudly. “I remember the first time Carlos talked me into eating one of those demons. Lord, I thought the devil had grabbed me by the ankle and pulled me straight down to hell. It told him I would never trust him again.”
“I know the feeling,” Beau nodded.
Milli appeared from nowhere to hug him close. “You monopolizing my groom?”
“If I could, I would. Pretty as he is, you’d better not let him out of your sight. But that old Mexican over there wouldn’t let me stand close to him for very long without making an excuse - to see what we were talking about. He’s still jealous, you know, even after more than fifty years. Now, where have you two put my fair-haired great-granddaughter? All this time I thought my genes had finally come through to mark one of the Jiminez children. Then I find out Katy’s father is a fair-haired, blue-eyed cowboy.”
“Oh, Grandmother, you know she got those pretty eyes from you. Beau gave her the dimples.”
“Don’t you believe it. She’s the spitting image of this man. Now go on and get some food. Just before midnight you two have to go your separate ways, you know. You better enjoy these moments, and besides, tradition has it that the bride and groom must be served first. You, are holding up the line.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Beau said.
Milli whispered as they made their way to the tables, “Aren’t you glad we’ve already had the honeymoon? It would be a helluva thing to endure all this and be thinking of nothing but a bed in a motel room.”
He tilted her chin up for a kiss. “Hey, I’m always thinking of ways to get you to the bedroom, but tomorrow night it will be legal, the paperwork will be finished and formally filed, and honey, it don’t matter where we are, it will be a wonderful honeymoon.”
“Oh?”
“That’s right. Our bedroom will be a honeymoon for the next fifty or sixty years. And then maybe we’ll go back down to the beach to refresh our memories of when we decided to like each other.” He bent forward just enough to kiss her again, oblivious to all the relatives.
“Oh, I’ve got a present for you.” She pulled an envelope from her purse and handed it to him.
“To open now?”
“Yep, right now. They’ll wait another minute for us. I was going to give it to you in private later, but we probably won’t have a more private time than right now. They’re going to eat. and visit and then it will be midnight. They all say I can’t see you from midnight tonight until the wedding tomorrow night. Momma says it’ll bring bad luck to the marriage. And she’s not about to have something happen right here at the end to sabotage the marriage. So open it.”
He tore into the envelope to find a check made out to the Bar M Ranch for a hundred thousand dollars and it was signed by Milli Torres.
“What is this?”
“That is what my herd brought. You are going to reinvest it in Angus cattle. I know you said that you’d fence off a section for my cattle, but a house divided cannot stand. So we won’t have a ranch divided, either. Katy is legally a Luckadeau as of today when the papers were signed, and I’ll be legally a Luckadeau tomorrow night. The Luckadeaus raise Angus cattle. So buy more Angus cattle for our ranch, darling.”
“But.”
She laid a finger over his lips. “No buts. And don’t be thinking I’m going to let you go buy cows all by yourself. Remember, whither thou goest, I shall go, if it’s under the water or to the cattle sale. Besides, I know a good Angus as well as you do. And you’re not using my money for a bunch of low down, useless culls.”
“You sayin’ I don’t know how to buy cattle?” he challenged.
“I’m sayin’ you might be a Luckadeau, but I’m a Torres and we cut our teeth in a sale barn, so I’m goin’ With you. Besides, by damn, you never know when Amanda or Jennifer or some barroom rosy just like them might take a fancy to what’s hiding under your belt buckle. And darlin’, I don’t share what’s mine with nobody. And that’s a fact.”
John Torres heard the last of the argument as he came to inform them supper was ready to be served. “Just say ‘Yes, dear.’ She gets that temper from the Jiminez side of the family. And I’m tellin’ you right now, it don’t mellow with age. The only redeeming quality is that they’re passionate in everything they do.”
He winked and looped an arm through his daughter’s arm and his son-in-law’s, and walking between them, he led them to the table laden down with a combination of Mexican and Anglo foods.
Beau lay on his back in the bunkhouse, surrounded by the snores of both his and Milli’s male relatives. Soft rain peppered the metal roof and then a low rumble of thunder sounded in the distance. Thank goodness, the wedding was going to be inside the barn. It wouldn’t matter if the grass was wet or if it stormed - like it had that morning when he found Milli in the pasture putting Jim’s tractor in the barn.
One memory led to another. There she was in the off-white lace dress, sitting in a chair on the edge of the reception room at the wedding; in his arms at the trailer; cussing at him and threatening to shoot him; when his heart remembered her and he couldn’t; hot habanero peppers; three wonderful days of honeymooning; and coming home. Suddenly he wanted to ride out to the barn where they met that morning when they made love for the second time. She wouldn’t be there, but he could stand in the doorway and smell the soft rain and hay and besides, he couldn’t sleep anyway. Call it nervous jitters or just plain fear that something would go wrong at the last minute, since it always did. Like they all said, “He’s lucky in everything but he sure ain’t lucky in love.”
Milli turned the covers back on the four-poster oak cannonball bed, and heard the low rumble of thunder just as her head hit the pillow where she would spend every night for the rest of her life. Only starting tomorrow night, Beau would be right beside her, and the bed wouldn’t seem nearly so big and empty.
Before she turned out the light, she looked at the dress hanging in the closet. She’d argued with her mother, declaring the whole time she was going to be married in the off-white lace dress Beau saw her wearing first, but in the end she lost the argument. Although she steadfastly refused to wear a big, white dress and veil, she did let her mother talk her into a simple ivory satin sheath with a wide portrait collar of lace. She would wear satin lace-up boots and Jana was styling her hair in a French roll with rosebuds worked into the curls at the top of the twist.
She went to the dresser and picked up the satin box holding her wedding present from Beau: a replica of the Bar M brand in 18 carat gold and diamonds, hanging from a gold chain. He told everyone at rehearsal she legally belonged to the ranch now, but in private, when he kissed her good night one last time before they were married, he told her it was to remind her where her heart was for all eternity.
She forgot about the dress, and laid the diamond brand down. She heard another low rumble of thunder and remembered the day it stormed and she met Beau in the barn. She hummed “How Do I Live.” The singer asked how she would live without him. Milli wondered how she’d live without Beau. It wasn’t something she wanted to answer, because life without him wasn’t life at all.
She threw back the covers and opened the drapes to watch the raindrops fall in the light between the window and the glow of the porch light in the bunkhouse. He was just fifty yards across the lawn and through that door, and in twenty-four hours, all the relatives would be gone. She shut the curtains and sat on the edge of the bed. She had the strangest notion to saddle up Wild Fire and race out to the barn.
She slipped her jeans back on and found her work boots in the closet. She didn’t bother putting on a bra, since no one was going to see her anyway. She saddled Wild Fire in the dark and in minutes she was racing across the pasture. They cleared the first fence with the expertise of an English lady riding to the hounds, in hot pursuit of the foxes. She thought she’d better fit the mold of a gypsy out chasing coyotes in the moonlight and rain. All she needed was a big flowing skirt of many colors and a toe ring. She already had the dark hair and eyes and a wild streak a mile wide.
The barn door was open when she arrived. The wind must have blown it open. Anyone in their right mind wouldn’t be out on a rainy night like this. All the relatives were sleeping soundly in the house. The bunkhouse on both the Bar M and Lazy Z and several motels in Ardmore were full. If a bunch of kids, who’d been out chasing coyotes, holed up in this barn, they’d better be on their knees with their little hands together in a prayerful pose when she got there. Because if they’d cut the fences again, she intended to read them a piece of her mind they wouldn’t want to hear.
She rode inside with intentions of tearing up a bunch of half-grown boys, and was surprised to find the barn empty except for Beau’s horse nibbling from a feed bucket and tethered to a support post.
“Hey, you better get on back home before you see me or I see you in better light and we have bad luck the rest of our lives.” His voice floated down from the loft.
“What are you doing here?” She was climbing the ladder to the loft before he could say another word.
“Same thing you are. My heart said ‘go to the barn’ and smell the hay and listen to the rain, and remember the day that turned your life around. So I listened to it and here I am.”
She put her arms around his waist and hugged him as if he was a lifeboat in a wild and windy ocean. “I heard the same thing. I love you so much it hurts.”
“But do you like me?” He pushed her back, yet held both her hands so she wouldn’t disappear in a foggy vapor.
“I’d like you even better if you’d allow me to unbutton that shirt. I promise I’ll button it right back when I’m finished with your body.” She shook her hands free from his and started unfastening the top button.
“With my blessings, but you know we have to be at home before daylight, safe in our beds. I sure don’t intend to face your mother if she finds out we cheated on the midnight rule That’d be one helluva way to get started off in the Torres family. Your brothers might even take me to the nearest oak tree and hang me with an old worn-out rope.”
“So we’ll get married right now and there can’t be any bad luck. I promise to love you, treat you with respect, and make you a wife you can be proud of. I promise to give you enough hell every day so that we can make up and have heaven every night.” She looked into his eyes as she recited her vows.
“And I promise to love you with my whole heart, never leave you, and give you tit for tat, for the rest of our lives,” he said.
The next evening the preacher put the finishing touch on the marriage in front of their families and friends. “By the authority vested in me by the state of Oklahoma I now pronounce Camillia Kathryn Torres and Anthony Beau Luckadeau man and wife. Beau, you may now kiss your bride.”
“Yes, sir.” Beau took Milli in his arms. “The spell is broken, my lady. I’m now lucky in love and will be throughout all eternity.”
He kissed her.
She gave him her heart and soul forever.
The End
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Sneak Peek of “One Lucky Cowboy”
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SLADE TRIED TO INTIMIDATE THE PETITE, DISHWATER BLONDE with a glare meant to drop her stone cold dead on the spot. Even if it didn’t work, she’d know exactly how he felt about the situation and that he wasn’t buying into her act. The fair-haired con artist with pecan-colored brown eyes would be gone in twenty-four hours and that wasn’t a threat; it was a solid promise. He might have just lost the first battle with his grandmother, but he’d be damned if he would lose the whole war.
Jane didn’t blink when she and the tall, blond cowboy locked eyes. She needed a place to hide for six weeks and this was perfect. If he thought he could run her off, he had cow chips for brains. The opportunity had dropped in her lap at the bus station like an answered prayer from heaven. She could endure his cold accusations and he could damn sure live with the situation for a few weeks. She’d stay out of his way as much as possible. She’d just seen how the evil male brain worked, and it was scary.