Red's Hot Cowboy (32 page)

Mesa gave her father a tolerant smile. Pearl recognized it because she’d used the same expression at least a gazillion times when she was eighteen and so much wiser than either of her parents.

He glared back at her. “I mean it.”

“I’ve got a question for Pearl. How do you feel about Uncle Wil?”

“Mesa Joanne! That’s plumb rude,” Amelia said.

“And asking her about a personal nickname and her marital status isn’t?”

Pearl winked at her. “Your Uncle Wil is one helluva cowboy.”

Mesa winked back. “A real one like Conway Twitty sings about?”

Pearl knew exactly what she was talking about. Conway Twitty had a song out years and years ago that said not to call him a cowboy ’til you’d seen him ride. Mesa was asking if she’d been to bed with Wil and knew if he was a real cowboy.

“Maybe,” she said with a shrug of her shoulders.

“What was that all about?” Wil asked.

“That, darlin’, is personal between me and your sweet little niece.”

Mesa giggled. “Is it a secret?”

“My lips are sealed.”

“What are you two goin’ on about?” Wil asked again.

“It’s between us and what goes on at a Sunday dinner is confidential, right, Mesa?”

“Hell, yeah!”

“Gretchen Wilson, ‘Redneck Woman,’” Pearl said.

Mesa gave her a thumbs-up sign. “That’s me. I may leave my Christmas lights up all year just like she says in that song.”

Pearl turned back to the adults. Thomas was grumbling to Amelia. Matthew was grinning. Carleen was telling him not to get too smug because he had three boys on the way to the altar in the very distant future. Martha Jane was staring at Pearl.

“So why did you say you quit your job at the bank?”

“I got tired of sitting on the side of the desk that gave out loans to young folks trying to start up businesses. I’d been thinking about doing something that would make me my own boss for a while and then my aunt died and left me the motel. Seemed like an omen.”

“I see,” Martha said. The tone didn’t match the chill in her voice and she could almost hear Lucy’s voice over her left shoulder telling her to get the hell out of Bowie and scoot right on back to the Longhorn as fast as she could.

“Hey, Wil, how’s that new bull? Is he going to be worth what you paid for him?” Matthew changed the subject abruptly.

“I didn’t get him. The man called from California the morning I was leaving and told me the bull, along with several other cattle, had been rustled.”

“That’s too bad. I was lookin’ forward to seeing him,” Matthew said.

The conversation went to bulls, buying cattle, and running ranches and Pearl sighed in relief. The warmth in her chair actually dropped from six degrees above hell’s hottest recorded temperature down to barely warm as the spotlight faded from her and onto a tractor out in the barn.

Don’t think it’s over just because you are out of the hot seat,
Aunt Pearlita’s voice came through loud and clear in her head.
You’ve still got dessert and visiting to do before you can go back to the motel.

Wil chose that moment to push his plate back a few inches and throw his arm around the back of her chair. He leaned over and whispered, “Want to take a ride around the property and have dessert later?”

She nodded.

“If y’all will excuse us, I’m going to give Pearl a tour of the ranch. We’ll have dessert when we get back.”

“But I thought we’d set two more tables and have a canasta play-off,” Martha Jane said.

“You’ve got enough here for that without us. Besides, Pearl is a sorry loser and she’ll throw the cards if she doesn’t get a good hand.”

“Thank you for a lovely dinner. Truth is I really am lousy at card games other than poker, but he’s not telling the truth about me throwing them. I usually just hide the bad cards and cheat,” she said.

Martha gasped.

Mesa laughed out loud. “Want some company?”

“No, we do not!” Wil said.

The last thing that filtered through the noise as Wil was shutting the door behind them was Mesa saying, “Don’t worry about her red hair, Granny. It’s not serious.”

The sun was out when they stepped outside. The sky was that strange shade of blue that only comes in the winter, not robin’s egg blue but not the crystal clear blue of a Texas summer sky. A few marshmallow clouds moved across the sky as if they had nowhere to go and a lifetime to get there. A couple of buzzards looked down from the utility poles bringing electricity and phone lines into the house.

Pearl pulled her shawl tightly around her shoulders and settled down into the passenger seat of the truck, wishing she’d brought along a heavier coat. Mesa’s comment worried through her mind like a hound dog with a fresh ham bone. She didn’t know whether to bury it and dig it up later to gnaw on or to ask Wil what Mesa meant. His answer might open a can of worms, so she kept her mouth shut while he drove around the house and down a road toward the back side of the ranch.

Describing the bumpy path they were on as a road was using the word loosely. It had tire tracks with grass growing up between them and ruts big enough to shake all that greasy fried chicken right down to her thighs. She’d have to run all the way to the last red light in Henrietta that evening to take off as many calories as she’d inhaled.

“My folks’ spread is twice as big as mine. I’ve only got a section of land, six hundred and twenty acres. They’ve got two sections. A mile to the back, two miles of road frontage. Mine runs a mile each way but someday when the neighbors get ready to retire I’m hoping to have enough saved back to buy their place and it will double. By then I’ll have to have more than one full-time hired hand, though. So how did you like my family?” Wil asked abruptly.

She turned her head slowly. “That came out of nowhere.”

“Yep, it did.”

“Your family is great. Love Mesa and her independence. Your sisters are very different, but then so are their husbands. And what did Mesa mean by that last remark?”

Wil frowned. “I hoped you didn’t hear that.”

“I did. What did it mean?”

“It’s the hair.”

“Mine or yours?”

“Yours.”

“What’s wrong with my hair? I washed it so it doesn’t stink. Hell, I even shaved my legs.”

Wil didn’t want to spoil the day, but the look on Red’s face said that she would have an answer and he might as well spit out the real one as tell a lie that would come back to bite him on the ass later that day. Besides, he’d hated that damned awkwardness in the truck with them before. He wanted everything to be up-front and honest because he was falling fast for Pearl Richland.

“It’s red.”

“Is that a major sin in the Marshall family? Do they tar and feather red-haired women or stone them to death? That’s why your mother kept giving me funny looks across the table, isn’t it? I thought I had sweet potatoes on my face and damn near wiped my freckles off with that napkin trying to figure out where the mess was. She looked like she’d been sucking on a lemon.”

“I’m sorry.” He grinned.

Even his sexy slightly lopsided smile didn’t miraculously make everything all right.

“What’s wrong with red hair?”

“Who knows? Maybe she had a red-haired cousin she didn’t like. Kind of like those cousins that called you Red and you didn’t like them. But every time my sisters brought home a new boyfriend she’d start in before he got to the door that she hoped to hell he didn’t have red hair.”

“I wouldn’t want to bring tainted blood into your royal family.”

“It’s no big deal. She’ll get over it when she gets to know you.”

“It’s a big deal to me. And I don’t give a damn if she gets over it because I probably won’t ever see her again.”

It started as a chuckle and grew into a guffaw that came close to busting out the windows of the truck. “You
are
one ball of fire when you are mad,” he said between laughter and catching his breath. “And tell me, red-hot lady, what about this annulment?”

“It was a long time ago. My boyfriend broke my heart and another guy stepped up to the plate. It didn’t work and I’m glad. You got any past wives or almost wives?”

“Hell, no!” He laughed. “Not a single one. Never met anyone who could get so fired up as you can, either!”

A grin tickled the corners of her mouth. He even laughed in a Texas drawl and his brown eyes were twinkling, but she’d crawl up on a rusty old poker and ride it to hell before she laughed with him. She pointed her finger at his nose and said, “And don’t you forget it.”

“How could I forget after all the hot sex we’ve had?” He turned her finger toward the window and whispered, “Look!”

“Oh!” she gasped, forgetting in an instant that she had abominable red hair. Two fawns stood on spindling legs and romped around close to a doe that was grazing just inside the fence. “They are so cute.”

“And over there?” He pointed the other direction where three Angus calves frolicked in the pasture, kicking up their heels and butting heads.

“Black Angus, not red.”

Wil choked back a sigh. The day wasn’t supposed to be like this. His mother was supposed to take one look at Red and hear wedding bells, not see visions of red-haired grandchildren.

Don’t beat an already dead horse.
Aunt Pearlita’s voice came through so loud that Pearl looked in the rearview mirror to see if her aunt was in the backseat.
Why do you care anyway? Is it because you are falling in love with Wil?

Pearl crossed her arms over her chest and argued with her aunt’s voice inside her head.
Helluva lot of good it would do me if I was falling for him. He’s Momma’s pretty baby and she hates redheads.

He stopped the truck and opened his door. She looked up to see a small log cabin nested in a copse of dormant pecan trees. By the time he rounded the front of the truck and opened her door, she had the seat belt undone and was scooting across the seat.

“Who lives here?”

“No one. We use it in deer season. This piece of land goes back several generations. My many-times-great-grandparents built this place as their home. It’s kind of like the Marshall historical marker.” He laced his fingers through hers and led her up the thick slab wood steps to the porch.

She forgot all about the red hair the minute his hand touched hers.

He opened the door and stood to one side. “We never lock it. No way to get to it except past the house and few people even know it’s back here anyway.”

She stepped in and pulled her shawl tighter around her shoulders. It was one big square room with a set of bunk beds pushed up against the wall to her left and another set to her right. Straight ahead was the kitchen area with an old black potbellied stove and small dorm-sized refrigerator. Cabinets had no doors and she could see stacks of plates, cups, and saucers as well as grocery staples. Above the sink a squeaky clean window looked out over the naked trees. Crispy white curtains had been pushed to the sides to allow sunlight to flow in the room.

“I’ll make a fire to take the chill off,” Wil said.

“We can stay that long?”

“You over twenty-one?”

“What’s that got to do with anything?”

He grinned. “Are you?”

“You know I am.”

He pulled a patchwork quilt from a bottom bunk and wrapped it around her shoulders. “So am I, so I guess we can stay as long as we want, can’t we?”

“Thank you,” she muttered seconds before his lips found hers in a scorching kiss. The quilt and kiss knocked the chill right out of her body.

“Cuddle up on that sofa. It’s older than Noah but it’s comfortable. It makes out into a bed. I’ve slept on it dozens of times since I got old enough to come back here with Dad and his brothers and all my cousins on hunting trips.”

No bad boy, cowboy, or any kind of boy had ever affected her like Wil did. His touches, his kisses, and everything about him was oh so right. She settled into the corner of the sofa, pulling the quilt tighter around her body like a shield against all the emotions and feelings that bombarded her from every side. She couldn’t see him building a fire but she could hear every movement and he was whistling “I Can’t Help Falling in Love with You,” an old Elvis tune.

The door to the old stove shut with a bang and suddenly he was on the sofa right beside her, tugging at the quilt and melting up against her for warmth. “It’ll be warm in a few minutes, but right now I believe this place could put icicles on Lucifer’s nose.”

“That’s pretty cold.”

He tucked the quilt in, making a cocoon with the two of them in the center. Then one hand slowly snuck out and cupped her chin. “I believe we were in the middle of a making out session when I felt you shiver.”

She shut her eyes and braced herself for the zing.

His thumb teased in that soft, sensitive area below her ear and suddenly she could hear a whole orchestra behind Elvis as he sang the song Wil had been whistling. He teased her mouth open and did a flirting dance with her tongue. The room began to warm from the fire but Pearl didn’t need it anymore. She and Wil were generating enough heat that the quilt hit the floor with her shawl soon following it.