Authors: Carolyn Brown
Austin smiled. Was Colleen trying to strike up a friendship or trying to steer her away from Rye?
“Want some help over there at Granny Lanier’s? She was a collector.” Gemma winked and shifted her eyes toward her grandmother.
Austin nodded ever so slightly that she understood. “Thanks, but I’ll have to go through it myself to know what to toss and what to pack for storage, but anytime you got a spare hour or two, drop by and keep me company.”
“I just might and don’t you roll your eyes at me, Rye,” Gemma said.
“You can’t see me,” Rye protested.
“I can hear it when you roll your eyes,” Gemma told him.
Austin giggled. Her childhood had been lonely. Her father had wanted at least two children; her mother wanted none. They had too much wine in Austin celebrating their first anniversary so they compromised. One child. And no more accidents.
Rye poked Austin on the arm and white-hot heat flooded through him in the form of pure old sexual desire. “What’s so funny?”
“All of you. This is fun.”
“I’m glad you think so. It’s a blistering chore to come down here on Sunday and put up with their sass,” he said but his expression didn’t back up his words.
“And what do you think it is for us? You’re a big blister on all our asses,” Colleen said.
“Momma, she’s using ugly words at the dinner table,” Raylen teased.
“No, she’s not. She’s speaking the gospel truth.” Dewar put his two cents into the mix and the argument was on.
Austin couldn’t remember the last time she’d had so much fun on Easter Sunday or any other Sunday for that matter. She’d polished off a healthy piece of pecan pie and wished she had room for another small slice when Grandma stood up and announced that it was pickin’ time.
Austin wasn’t sure what they were going to pick or if it was time for her to make excuses, say thank you, and let the family get on with whatever was next for their Easter afternoon. Surely they weren’t talking about five grown children hunting eggs out in the pasture! If they were then someone else was hiding the damn things.
“Music,” Rye whispered, his warm breath sending tingles down her arms and putting goose bumps on her scalp. “Grandma likes to do a little playin’ on Easter or any other time she can talk us into making music. Out under the shade trees in the backyard. I think it reminds her of when she was young.”
Grandma slapped him on the shoulder. “I might be old but my hearing is still good. A woman likes good music; it don’t have nothin’ to do with her age. And you need to bring that girl around more often. You’ve smiled more today than I’ve seen you do in a long time.”
“What makes you think it’s Austin causing me to be happy? Maybe I just like Easter,” he said quickly.
Grandma just patted him on the shoulder and grabbed Grandpa’s arm as he headed out the door.
Quilts had been thrown down in front of six chairs under the shade of two enormous pecan trees. Kittens romped and played on the patchwork quilts but scattered quickly when Rye and Austin sat down.
“I’d best sit in a chair today. I can sit down on the quilt without a problem, but gettin’ up, now that’s a different story.” Grandpa pulled an extra folding chair from behind the tree and set it up beside where Austin was sitting.
Colleen pointed at Rye. “You’ve got a job to do and it’s not sitting there while we work.”
“I’ve got a guest.”
“So? Granny Lanier was your guest and you still played. Get on up here. She can hold down that quilt without you.”
Two cowboys flopped down on the pallet with Austin and Rye.
The taller one with the light brown eyes flashed a smile at Austin. “Hey, we’ll help hold down the quilt and talk to the pretty lady while y’all play.”
The other one nodded seriously at her. “I’m Ace Riley and that ugly cowboy would be Wil Marshall. He can’t help it if he’s as ugly as a mud fence covered up in horse apples. Protect your eyes and don’t look at him, ma’am. And you’d be Miz Verline’s granddaughter? She always did say we ought to meet each other.”
Rye bristled at the banter and shot a mean look across the distance separating him and Ace. He would have liked to have shot a fist over and connected up with his eye even if Ace and Wil were his two best friends.
Colleen strummed on the banjo. “Come on, Rye. We are waiting.”
Grandma pulled up a chair beside her husband. “I’m sittin’ this one out. You kids get the instruments warmed up and then I’ll take over.”
Rye slowly got to his feet and picked up the guitar waiting on the last chair left with an instrument in it but he kept an eye on his two friends who were busy carrying on a conversation with Austin. Raylen was adjusting the strings on a fiddle. Colleen had a banjo strapped around her neck; Gemma was playing the Dobro; Dewar was sitting down with a dulcimer in his lap. And Maddie had a harmonica up to her mouth, running up and down it to get the feel for the right sound.
Rye struck up a chord and they all fell in to begin the backyard concert with “Red River Valley” and followed that by “Bill Bailey.” In the latter Rye had the lead and made the guitar whine the melody so well that Austin could hear the words to the old song in her head as well as if someone was singing it.
Grandma stood up at that time and kissed Grandpa on the forehead. “They got them all warmed up now, darlin’, so I’ll play your favorite.”
He grinned and she took the dulcimer from Dewar and motioned for him to relieve Raylen from the fiddle and for Raylen to take over for Rye.
“Good grief, can they all play all of those things?” she asked.
“No, honey, only Raylen can do it all. The rest are limited to a couple or three each. But Raylen and my sugar can play anything that falls into their hands,” Grandpa said.
“We’ll be doing ‘Rye Whiskey’ now and, honey, you’ll be singing,” Grandma said.
Grandpa nodded.
Dewar pulled the bow across the stings and the whine of the fiddle stirred something deep in Austin’s soul. Guitar music joined him and then the rest of the instruments before Grandpa came right in on cue with the first words of “Rye Whiskey.”
Rye held out a hand to Austin. “Walk with me and see the new colt Momma got last week.”
“No fair, stealing her away. You know Granny Lanier wanted me to meet her. She even said our blue eyes matched up so perfect that we’d have beautiful great-grandchildren for her.” Ace laid a hand on hers to hold her back.
She didn’t feel anything but a big, old warm hand; no tingles, no internal fires, no oozy feeling in the pits of her gut. She pulled her hand away and put it in Rye’s and there it was: all the blazes of hell!
“Granny Lanier would have shot you on the spot if you’d come sniffin’ around the door,” Rye said. “She knew you were a bad boy.”
“Not me.” Wil reached up and grabbed her other hand to keep her from walking away with Rye. “I’m the good boy. You two were always the ornery ones. Austin, I swear I’m the good one and I can prove it. Look at their arms. They’re the ones who got drunk and wound up with tats. I was the good one who didn’t let them talk me into such a thing.”
Austin was amazed. Rye’s touch was sending shock waves from her hair roots all the way to her toenails. Wil’s was like shaking hands with a new customer at the oil company. She pulled free from Wil’s hand and let the jolt of electricity flow through her as Rye pulled her to her feet.
“Yeah, right!” Rye said. “You were too drunk to get out of the backseat and get one. If you’d held your whiskey better you’d have been right in there with us.”
Austin had never had three men fighting over her. It felt pretty damn good even if they were all teasing, but Rye was the only one she had eyes for that day. She didn’t jerk her hand free when he laced his fingers into hers and led her toward the barn in the distance. She looked back to see Ace and Wil grinning, Gemma giving her a thumbs-up sign in between strums on the Dobro, and Colleen frowning.
When they reached the corral, Rye popped a leg up on the lowest rung of the white fence and looked out over the mares and their new offspring. Austin leaned on a fence post and watched the long legged colts romping in the afternoon sunshine.
She could hear music behind her and recognized “Barbara Allen.”
“Do they play anything current?”
“Yes, they do. We just play the old ones when Grandma is around. She still likes that kind of music. Isn’t listening to the old stuff better than going through dusty old boxes all day?”
She leaned on the fence beside him. “Yes, it is. Granny used to have an old fiddle cassette with lots of those songs on it. When I was little we’d dance around the living room together. Come to think of it, there was actually room to dance around in those days. When did she start bringing in so much junk? Did you and Granny walk out here on Sunday afternoons?”
He shook his head. “No, she sat on the porch with Grandma and Grandpa and talked politics. If Congress would have come on down here to north Texas and spent the afternoon with them, the whole government wouldn’t be in the shape it’s in today. They could have solved all the problems and even gotten the country out of debt in one Sunday afternoon. And she always was a collector but after she got the tumor she started hitting every garage sale in the county and always brought home a box of stuff. I thought it was something in her brain. She seemed to get a big charge out of putting it everywhere. I told her once that you would have a time getting rid of all of it and she told me to mind my own business and stay out of hers.”
“Sounds about right. Granny was very opinionated. That’s why she and my mother never did get along. They’re too much alike.”
Rye could have stood right there forever with his left forearm resting on the fence and holding her hand with his right hand. Their fingers intertwined felt so right—there was the heat, the tingle, but also a feeling like their hands were joined together with their souls somehow—like this was meant to be. “I didn’t even know your mother was alive. I did know all about her son, Eddie, and her granddaughter, Austin, but she never mentioned your mother.”
“That’s too funny for words.”
“Why?”
“Because Mother still asks about her every week. We have brunch together most Saturdays and I talked to Granny on Thursday nights. Mother always asks how she’s doing and what’s going on at the farm,” Austin answered.
“Why is it that they didn’t like each other?”
“Granny never forgave her for taking him away from Terral. Even if he didn’t want to come back, it became Mother’s fault. End of story.”
“I wouldn’t like it either if some hussy stole my only chick.”
“My mother is not a hussy,” Austin said. At last he’d said something that irritated her and proved he wasn’t perfect after all.
“Hey, pardon me. I wasn’t out to stomp your toes. To each his own and all that shit.”
“Apology accepted.”
He reached out and ran his knuckles down her jawline leaving a trail of heat that swirled all the way down to her toes. “You get all tense when you are angry. Anyone ever tell you that?”
“I’ve been told that my eyes flash lightning bolts.” Right then more than her eyes was hot!
Using the other hand, he cupped her face in his hands and leaned in for the kiss. She shut her eyes and got ready for the shock. His lips moved slowly, drinking in the taste before his tongue teased her lips apart and he made sweet love to her mouth. The tension left her body and the pure raw desire began.
Then all of a sudden he pulled away leaving her panting and her lips suddenly cold—almost bereft.
“What was that all about?” she asked.
“Happy Easter. I’m glad you came to dinner even if my family gave you hell.” He struggled mightily with himself not to plunge back into another soul tearing kiss, but Rye knew he had to stop or else he was going to throw sanity out the window and take her to the hay loft and do a helluva lot more than kiss her, and Austin Lanier deserved better than a bed of hay.
“I love that your family included me in the teasing. I’ve enjoyed the day but that didn’t have a thing to do with a kiss like that.”
“I wanted to kiss you all day. You looked so damn cute hiding eggs and sitting on the tailgate watching the kids,” he said softly.
“And I thought you were just trying to get next to me to get my watermelon farm for a song and a dance—or would it be a home cooked meal and a kiss?” she smarted off. How dare he call her mother a hussy! Granted she might be just that, but he had no right to call her one.
“If that’s what you think of me then it’s time we go back to Terral. I’ve got chores to do anyway after I show you the wine cellar.” She’d finally aggravated him and it had only been a little more than twenty-four hours. He knew it was too good to be true and that eventually he’d figure out she wasn’t as perfect as he’d thought when he finally saw her in real life.
“That sounds fine by me. I’ll tell your family good-bye and thank them for the lovely afternoon.”
“Don’t bother. Just get in the truck and I’ll call Momma later tonight.” Rye’s tone was curt and serious. The smile was gone and his eyes were dark instead of sexy.
She wished she was wearing anything but high-heeled sandals on her stomping journey back to the house. Rye O’Donnell had horse crap for brains if he thought for one minute that he was going to order her back into the truck, leaving his family to think she was too damn rude to thank them. He could drive his sorry ass home alone and she’d walk the whole seven miles before that happened. Her hussy mother hadn’t raised a rude child.
“Looks like trouble in paradise to me, sugar,” Grandpa said loudly.
“I said I’d call Momma later.” Rye laid a hand on Austin’s shoulder when he caught up to her. Anger did not take away the jolt of desire brought on by a touch.
She shrugged his hand away. “I’ll do my own talking.”
“Looks like he really has met his match,” Grandma giggled.
“Flowers and candy for a starter, Rye. And follow it up with a nice dinner at the Peach Orchard and a walk down on the riverbanks after the stars come out,” Ace said.
Rye shrugged and sat down on the pallet. “Where’s Dewar and Colleen?”
“Dewar had to go get a guitar pick. Colleen went with him to get something to drink.”