Red's Hot Cowboy (33 page)

Without breaking away from her delicious lips, he picked her up and carried her to the nearest bunk. He meant to lie her down gently but wound up tumbling into the bed with her, their bodies plastered together without enough room for a beam of sunlight between them.

Need took precedence and she forgot all about the argument or the fact that the door didn’t have a lock or anything else. She and Wil tore at each other’s clothes as if they had to prove that nothing could keep them from each other.

When they were naked, he pulled the quilt from the upper bunk and wrapped it over them as he covered her face in hot kisses and sunk himself inside her to prove that she was still his woman even though they’d argued.

It wasn’t like anything they’d shared before. It was furious, fast, hot, and quick with both of them panting when it was over. He rolled to one side and held her tightly.

“I’m sorry,” he said hoarsely.

“For what? I wanted it just like that. I had to know right then that you…”

He waited while she struggled with the words. “That I love you. I do, Red. I know it’s too soon to tell you that but I do.”

She pulled his mouth over to hers and whispered, “It’s not too soon. I love you too, but…”

He finished the sentence for her. “But we’ve got to slow this wagon down or it’s going to burn to the ground with the heat.”

“Does that mean an encore is out of the question?” she asked.

“Hell, no! Give me a minute to catch my breath,” he said.

Dusk was settling around the motel when Wil walked her to the lobby door and waited while she fished her key chain from her purse.

“Tomorrow night?” he asked.

She wrapped her arms around his neck and rolled up on her toes for a kiss. “No,” she said just before their lips met.

When he broke the kiss, he asked, “Why?”

“You said it, Wil. We really do have to slow things down. You aren’t going to back out on going with me on Sunday, are you?”

Lucy yelled from the other end of the motel. “I saw you comin’ home. I’d run up to my room to get a bite of supper while there was a quiet minute but I kept an eye on the place in case someone needed to check in.”

“Hi, Lucy,” Wil said and then whispered to Pearl, “I won’t back out.”

Pearl nodded, but she wasn’t convinced. His momma didn’t like red hair. In a week’s time that could change the whole course of the universe.

Lucy unlocked the door.

Wil dropped a quick kiss on Pearl’s forehead and whistled all the way back to the car.

“We had a slow evening but…” Lucy clamped a hand over her mouth. “You went to bed with Wil. I can see it in your eyes. How did you manage to do that at his momma’s house?”

“We took a drive and there’s a cabin.”

“What’re you goin’ to do now?”

“We’re going to dinner at my folks next Sunday, if he doesn’t find some excuse not to go.”

“But that’s a whole week,” Lucy said. “When me and Cleet were first in love we couldn’t hardly go a whole day without seein’ each other.”

Pearl had told Wil that she loved him but she wasn’t ready to admit it to anyone else. “You don’t have to be in love to have sex.”

“I agree.” Lucy nodded. “After I found out what kind of man Cleet was I had lots of sex with him, but I dang sure wasn’t in love no more. Didn’t his momma know when you got back to the house? Lord, it’s written all over your face.”

“We didn’t go back. Wil called and said that I had to get back to work and Lucy, she don’t like red hair so she’s not going to like me.”

“Bullshit! She can get over that part, and if she can’t then that’s her tough luck. You are a wonderful person and don’t you forget it. You hungry?”

“Starvin’,” Pearl said.

“Why don’t you run up to the Sonic and get yourself a hamburger and let me take care of things here? It’ll do you good to ride a spell. It did me. Don’t bring your supper home. Sit up there and watch the people. Turn on the radio and listen to some good old country music and you’ll get out of them blues.”

Pearl stood up and picked up her purse from the counter where she’d dropped it. “You’re right, and thanks, Lucy. How many guests we got tonight?”

“Three so far. Get on out of here and go get a burger or one of those steak sandwiches. After what you been doin’ you got to be hungry,” Lucy said.

“Thanks. I’ll be back in a few minutes,” Pearl said.

“Hey, take your time,” Lucy yelled as Pearl crossed the lobby.

Blake Shelton’s voice singing “The Baby” came through the speakers of the old work truck when she fired up the engine. Evidently Lucy liked the country music channels too. She remembered Wil’s sisters saying the song had been written about him. As the song played she agreed that it fit him perfectly. He might not have been all those things that Blake mentioned, but there was no doubt he’d always be his momma’s baby.

Just like you,
her conscience yelled.

“Yes, I am, but I’m not spoiled as bad as he is.”

She drove west into town and pulled into a spot at the Sonic. She rolled down the window and pushed the button, ordered a steak sandwich, large fries, and chocolate malt. A tinny voice came through the speakers telling her the amount she owed. She dug around in her purse and brought out two five-dollar bills.

The wind had picked up and swept across her face. She quickly rolled the window up and looked around just in time to see Wil crawling into the passenger’s seat. Her eyebrows shot up.

“What are you doin’ here?”

He leaned across the seat and kissed her. “I was hungry. Should’ve asked you if you wanted something before I left you. Sorry about that.”

He reached across the seat and laid a hand on her shoulder. If only he could hug her tightly and never let her go, but there was something that scared the holy hell out of him. He’d found his soul mate, but what if she hadn’t? What if in a year or two or three, or after a child or four or five, she decided she wanted to party again?

She wanted to undo his shirt, run her fingers over that broad chest, and dig her nails into his back; to nibble on his lip and watch his eyes go soft and dreamy when he looked at her. It felt right. Matter-of-fact, it felt damn good. But what if it really was a flash in the pan and when the heat died out she was left with nothing but a heart full of ashes?

“There’s my order. See you on Sunday. Alright if I call you during this wake?” she said.

“What wake?” he asked hoarsely.

“The death-of-an-attraction wake.”

“Yes, you can call.” He smiled and brushed a soft kiss across her lips. “Good night again, Red.”

“Good night, Wil. You really aren’t just putting the brakes on so you don’t have to go to my folks’ place, are you?” she asked.

“I wouldn’t do that to you, Red,” he said.

He paid for his order and drove away, leaving her sitting there, the only car in the entire parking lot. It was a very lonely place to be, especially when her heart wanted to follow him out to the ranch.

Wil hiked a leg on the fence and looked out over his cattle grazing on big round bales of hay that he’d grown on his land the previous spring and summer. The ranch was prospering and there was still a nest egg in the bank from his rodeo days in case of a bad year. He hadn’t had to go to the bank for an agricultural loan yet, and as long as the land supported itself he’d be in good shape.

The ranch had been his dream since he’d been big enough to ride a stick horse all over the front yard, but that morning he wanted more than land and cows. The yearning to have someone to share his life with had become so strong in the past few weeks that he felt like poor old Rye had when he’d gone love drunk over Austin.

He heard the rattle of a truck before he could actually see it. He tipped back his hat and watched the truck come into sight. He was disappointed when it was Ace Riley and not Red’s little hand-me-down truck.

He and Ace, along with Rye, Dewar, and Raylen O’Donnell, had all lived close together and had grown up at rodeos and ranch sales. Ace crawled out of his truck, shook the legs of his jeans down over his work boots, and started toward the pasture fence. Wil was several inches taller than Ace, who topped the chart at five feet ten inches tall, making him the shortest of the five men who were fast friends. He had blond curly hair that looked like he’d been dipped in a DNA pool over in Africa. He wore it short and didn’t attempt to tame it other than slapping an old felt hat on his head that made his head sweat in the summer and the curls even tighter. His eyes were blue as a robin’s egg and he had a barbed wire tat around his upper left arm just like Rye O’Donnell had.

Wil smiled when he thought about the tat. He and Rye and Ace were finally all twenty-one years old. They’d been to a rodeo down in Mesquite, Texas, and had far too many shots with beer chasers after the dance at the end of the rodeo that night. Rye was whining about his woman running off and leaving him and how he’d never trust another female. Ace was driving, even though he couldn’t have passed a Breathalyzer test from six feet away. Wil was almost asleep when the truck stopped dead and Ace told Rye to get out.

Wil had looked up to see the flashing neon sign of a tattoo parlor and Ace telling Rye that he was tired of listening to his bitchin’.

“We’re goin’ to go get us some barbed wire around our arms. Our left arms,” he’d said with a slur. “You comin’, Wil?”

Wil had asked them why they were getting a tattoo in the middle of the night.

“Me and Rye ain’t made for marryin’. We’re goin’ to put a barbed wire tat on our left arm right up next to our hearts and never let a woman get past it, ain’t we, Rye?”

“Damn straight!” Rye’d said.

Now it was eleven years later. Rye was married and he and Austin were happy as a couple of kittens in the milk house. Ace still swore the tat was his guardian angel and he’d never marry, not even if she was rich and beautiful.

Since Wil had met Pearl Richland, he wasn’t so quick to vow that he wasn’t interested in a long-term relationship, with or without barbed wire tattooed around his arm.

“On my way over to Wichita Falls to pick up a tractor part. Tryin’ to get everything in workin’ order before spring hits and we don’t have time to breathe,” Ace hollered as he made his way toward Wil.

“This’ll be your first plantin’ season without Gramps around. You’ll miss him,” Wil said when Ace propped a leg on the fence beside him.

“Already do. Old codger had to have his way about everything in the world and wouldn’t change a thing. I kept thinkin’ about how I’d do things when the ranch was mine and now that it is, be damned if I’m not gettin’ more like him every day.” Ace looked out over the cattle. “You might as well ride over to the big city with me and we’ll get some dinner over there. I heard you been keepin’ company with Austin’s friend, Pearl. That so?”

“Guess I have,” Wil said slowly.

“You got anything you have to be doin’ this mornin’?” Ace asked.

“Jack is plowing up the west forty getting it ready for spring planting. I’ve been thinkin’ about buyin’ another tractor, so I could take a look at what the prices are if I go along.” He thought aloud but didn’t take his foot off the fence.

Ace nodded in agreement. “You need another tractor. One tractor ain’t enough for a section.”

“I might add another hand come spring. Been thinkin’ about building a bunkhouse out beyond the barns. Maybe start off little with only three rooms and a small den and kitchen all together, but make it so I can add on later. I really hope to buy the farm next to me when it comes up for sale and then I’ll have to have more help.”

Ace headed toward his truck.

Wil followed.

Red said she needed time to see if this was going to die in its sleep, but he didn’t want it to die. He wanted it to survive and grow. It was time to stop worrying the whole thing to death and begin feeding it. He flipped open his phone and sent a text message to her cell:
I miss you, Red.

***

Pearl was cleaning room number twenty-four and trying to figure out why the whole place felt as sinister as if Lucifer had spent the night in it when her cell phone set up a vibration in her hip pocket. She pulled it out and read his message. Those few words sent a tingling shiver down her spine almost as hot as when he touched her skin. She sent a message back:
Me too.

She’d dreamed about Wil again the night before. She tried to remember the dream as she dusted, vacuumed, and carried the towels and sheets out to the maid’s cart, but it wouldn’t materialize. She just knew that she’d dreamed about him and when she awoke she was scared that he wouldn’t go with her on Sunday. She’d be left out in the cold holding the bag again just like she was when Vince left.

The cell phone vibrated again. She pulled it out, expecting another message from Wil, but it was Jasmine:
On my way to see you.

Lucy stuck her head in the door. “I’m grabbing this laundry and it’ll be the last load today. I thought I’d take the truck to the library when I’m finished. You need anything from town?”