Love Drunk Cowboy (27 page)

“Sure you can. Did you think about a shop of your own today?”

“I did. I told Rye and he said that he’d even finance it and Momma said she and Daddy would help me get started. There’s an empty building down beside the Chicken Fried Café a couple of miles south of Ringgold. It used to be a little used car place years ago and they used the building for an office. It’s a good size and there’s parking room. Come back and help me decide on colors.”

“I’ll be there on weekends. Probably getting in late Thursday night and coming back about noon on Sunday,” Austin said.

“That is wonderful! Have a good week and we’ll see you next weekend.”

Rye turned on the television and surfed through the channels. Nothing, not even the bull riding, kept his attention. He popped the tab on a second beer, carried it out to the front porch, and stared at the empty house across the road. Finally he walked over there and sat down on the porch. Rascal meandered around the end of the house and laid down close enough that Rye could scratch his ears.

“Are you already missing her too?”

Rascal set up a noisy purr.

“I thought I had another day at the very least. Actually, I hoped for a miracle and that she’d stay on forever. I had big things planned.”

Rascal arched his head back.

Stars twinkled in half the sky. The other half was a mass of black clouds rolling in from the southwest. Depending on how big the storm was and how slow or fast it moved, there was a good chance neither he nor Raylen would show off their bronc busting powers the next day. He’d looked forward to a little rivalry between him and Raylen, just to show off for Austin. Now it would be work and not fun, so he didn’t care if it poured down rain all day.

“Let’s call her again.” Rye pulled his phone from his shirt pocket and it went straight to voice mail.

“Why in the devil didn’t I make sure I had her home phone number as well as her cell number? Maybe her cell phone is dead and she’s recharging it? Maybe she turned the ringer off or maybe she’s in the shower. What do you think, Rascal?”

Rascal jumped up in his lap. He scratched him with one hand and tried calling her one more time but got voice mail again telling him to leave a message at the beep. He was so engrossed in her voice that he didn’t realize it was time for him to leave a message. “I was petting Rascal and didn’t realize it was time to talk. This is Rye. I was checking to make sure you made it home all right. Call me when you have time.”

He’d barely finished talking when his cell phone rang.

“Hello,” he said breathlessly.

“What were you doing?” Gemma laughed.

“Nothing. The phone startled me.”

“Hoping it was someone other than your sister?”

“You are nosy.”

“And you thought it was Austin, didn’t you?”

“Did you call for a reason or to tease me?”

“Momma says it’s raining and the weatherman says it’s a slow moving storm coming from out around Amarillo so we won’t be breaking horses tomorrow. We will have dinner and I already talked to Austin so I get her share of the shortcake.”

“Okay. I’ll leave my spurs at home and be there in time for dinner.”

“Aren’t you interested in what she had to say? I called her to see if she was still coming to dinner and to tell her that I’m considering her idea about a beauty shop in this area.”

“I talked to her awhile ago,” he said.

“Good. My battery is about to go and I’m getting those annoying little beeps so we’ll see you for dinner tomorrow.”

Austin had been in the shower when both phone calls came in. She was drying her hair when the house phone rang and she raced to the kitchen to grab it on the second ring, hoping to hear Rye’s deep voice on the other end.

“Hello,” she said breathlessly but it wasn’t Rye. It was her mother.

“I’ve got the whole day free tomorrow after all. Let’s do brunch and shop away the afternoon. I hear there’s a sale on women’s suits at Neiman’s. I’ve been looking at a cute little red one that might be half price today.”

“I thought you were going to be busy?”

“Ask me no questions. I’ll tell you no lies. I’ll pick you up at eleven. Dress casual since we’ll be trying on clothes.”

“I’ll be ready.”

She found his messages on her cell when she went back to the bedroom and called him. He answered on the first ring.

“I need your house phone number. You never did give it to me,” he said. “You’ve always called me on your cell phone or Verline’s phone.”

“I left it on your answering machine.”

“You left Granny’s number on my answering machine.”

She giggled. “I’m sorry, Rye. Here it is.” She rattled it off and wondered if it was an omen. Had she begun to think of Terral as home and automatically rattled off the phone there?

He wrote it down and memorized the numbers as she said them. “We’ve been playing phone tag for over an hour.”

“I miss you,” she blurted out.

That put a smile on his face and lightened the heavy rock lying where his heart was supposed to be. He jumped up from the sofa and danced around the living room pretending the phone was Austin. “Oh, honey, I’ve been lonesome all evening. That house across the road is just as lonesome as I am.”

She felt as if he’d kissed her with his words. “I’m so sorry I didn’t see you before I left. It was tough leaving Terral. I thought I’d be ready to get back to Tulsa. I wasn’t.”

The rock was gone and his heart skipped two full beats.

“Good! I knew you were a farmer the first day you dropped seeds in the ground.”

She yawned. “Can we talk about this more tomorrow? I’m so tired and sleepy tonight that I’m actually weepy.”

“Yes, darlin’, we can. You sleep late and I’ll call in the afternoon.”

“Good night, Rye. I wish I had a good night kiss.”

“So do I. Good night.”

He said the words so softly that she touched her lips to see if they’d been kissed.

“Damn!” She exclaimed the next morning when her apartment door shut behind her. She hurriedly unlocked it, ran back into the apartment, and picked up her cell phone. She didn’t intend to miss a single one of Rye’s calls even if she was with her mother all day. She jogged to the car where her mother was waiting.

“Good morning. I’m glad for emergencies,” Barbara said.

“Want to explain what you are talking about?”

“Not really because you are going to have a fit about it, but I suppose this is as good a time as any. I’m seeing a doctor, a surgeon.” She spit it out as if she was telling Austin about the new line of Chevrolets coming out in the fall.

“But…” Austin sputtered.

“Your father has been dead for years. I’m still young enough I’d like to have a male companion and James is a wonderful man.”

Austin took a deep breath. “Okay, how long have you been seeing him?”

Barbara squirmed in the driver’s seat of her Chevy Tahoe. “Why did you ask that?”

“Just wondered.”

“I started seeing him six months after your father died. I knew you’d be a blister so I didn’t bother to tell you until now. But now that’s out of the way, we’ll go to brunch and do some shopping,” Barbara said and began to talk about how many cars she’d sold that week since her stock was back up.

Austin giggled.

“What’s so funny? Selling cars is what makes my living.”

“You are talking too much which means you are nervous,” Austin answered.

“If I’m talking, then you can’t and I don’t want to hear all that you are thinking about me having a companion all these years and not telling you.”

“I was happy these past weeks in a strange kind of way. I thought I’d be sad after the memorial service and when I had to pack Granny’s things. But it was weird how happy I was. I’m not mad at you. I want you to be as happy as I am.”

You don’t miss the water until the well runs dry.
It felt like Verline was in the backseat of the shiny black Tahoe whispering in her ear.

Barbara didn’t comment but changed the subject abruptly. “Your grandparents are finally tired of taking trips. I’m glad since they’re both in their eighties now. I worry when they go to those faraway places that they’ll have a heart attack over there. They were my age when they retired and gave me and your father the business. They were both fifty-two and still young, like I am. If this promotion doesn’t come through for you, I’ve been thinking about retiring in the next five years and giving you the business.”

You want to sell cars or make wine?

Austin turned around and made sure her Granny wasn’t sitting there in her overalls and boots.

“So?” Barbara asked.

“So don’t expect me to make a decision like that on a moment’s notice. I figured you’d run that business until you dropped dead after a record selling day.”

“I planned on it but then…”

“But then you figured out how much fun James can be. Right? Is he about ready to retire? Oh, my God, is he about to propose to you? Or has he already done so?”

Barbara pushed back a strand of hair. “I’m not ready to hand you the keys today but the place will be yours someday. I was younger than you are when your father and I took charge of it.”

Wine,
her heart whispered.

Cars,
common sense said.

But what if it’s neither or maybe both?
she argued.

“Thank you for the offer but that’s five years down the road…”

Barbara sighed. “That place got its hooks into you, didn’t it?”

“Oh, Mother, you are getting worked up over nothing.”

“It’s my comeuppance. Your grandmother said that I took her son and someday I’d regret it. I loved him, Austin, with my whole heart but I could not live in that godforsaken place.”

“I doubt there was much in the way of business down there that you all could have made a living at.”

“We could have worked in Duncan or in Wichita Falls, either one, and been closer but…” She let the sentence dangle.

When there’s a but there’s a regret. Do whatever you do without a but and you’ll be happy.

Austin looked over her shoulder again but the backseat was still empty.

“Let’s eat and shop,” Austin said with as much excitement as she could muster.

They were walking into the mall when Austin’s phone vibrated in her pocket. She picked it out to see a text message from Rye.

Call me when you wake up. I’m lonely.

Barbara went straight for the suit rack in her favorite dress shop and Austin said she was going to look at shoes. She sat down in the back corner of the shoe department and sent him a text.

Shopping with Mother. Will call when I get home. Miss you!

She was trying on a pair of high heels when the phone buzzed again.

Miss you too! I want to hear your voice. Call me when you can.

They shopped until the stores closed in the mall, then made a trip through Walmart for their weekly staples like bagels, non-fat cream cheese, skim milk, and yogurt. When Austin got home the little red light was flashing on the answering machine so she poked the right button and held her breath.

“Darlin’, the day dragged by like a lazy old house slug. If every day is like this until Thursday I won’t live through them. Call me when you get home. I can’t wait to talk to you.”

She played the message through four times. His voice in her ear made her breath a little heavier and she wished she could dart across the street and talk to him. Ask him what he thought about her selling cars or even simply find out what had gone on in his day.

Before she took the first bite of the fried rice she called him. On the fifth ring his answering machine came on again. She called his cell and got his voice mail.

“Hi, this is Austin. We must be playing phone tag again. I’ll be home all evening. Shopped with Mother. I just now checked the messages. I’m so sorry I missed your call.”

The phone rang four times before she went to bed but none of them was Rye. She’d barely turned out the lights when the phone rang again.

“Hello?” she said.

“Austin, this is pure hell,” he said bluntly.

“I know. I hate it too, but it’s the only way I can keep things going on two ends of the state,” she groaned.

“I want to kiss you good night. I want to hold you, not this damned old cold phone,” he said.

“Me too,” she sighed. How was she going to leave next time knowing that Rye wanted to kiss her good night every night?

“Tell me about your shopping day,” he said.

“You don’t want to hear about dress racks and trying on clothing.”

“I want to hear your voice. You can read the whole Bible or talk about accounting. I don’t care what you say. I just want your voice in my ear as I fall asleep.”

“Where are you?”

“On the sofa. Why? Where are you?”

“In bed with the lights turned out. I’m shutting my eyes and thinking about us being on the quilt beside the river. I can hear the tree frogs and the crickets,” she said softly.

“You are killing me,” he moaned.

“And you are running your hand up my thigh all the way to where my cutoffs end and oops, there it is right on the elastic of my bikini underwear,” she said.

“And the other one is sneaking up on those bra hooks. God, Austin, I want you so bad,” he said hoarsely.

“Now your lips are on mine and I can taste strawberry shortcake and Coors beer. It’s a wonderful combination. Your tongue is teasing my mouth open and I run my hands over your rock hard muscles. I touch the tat but it’s not sticky like barbed wire. I can’t even feel where it begins and where it ends.”

“Your hands are like silk on my skin. I’m going to take off your shirt and taste you from nose to toes,” he said.

She giggled. “If I’m going to sleep at all tonight, darlin’, we’re going to have to stop this phone sex before you talk about that or I’ll be walkin’ the floor all night.”

“You could tell them all to go to hell, be here in five hours, and we could have the real thing. Wait a minute… your breasts taste faintly like that coconut bath oil you use.”

“God Almighty, Rye! I’m so hot the sheets are steaming.”