Red's Hot Cowboy (36 page)

Pearl slapped Jasmine on the arm. “Some friend you are. Stay at my motel and steal my friend.”

Lucy shook her head. “No, ma’am. I’m happy right where I am. I’ve had my share of hot kitchens and a man who didn’t appreciate a single minute of all the hard work.”

“Oh, you are divorced?” Martha Jane asked.

“You could say that,” Lucy said softly.

“And you grew up with Pearl?” Martha Jane asked Jasmine.

“I did. My momma and hers are best friends. She is two months older than me. Her birthday is two days after Valentine’s and I was born on Easter. Of course mine hasn’t been on Easter but a few times, but we always had a big pink party on her birthday.”

Wil had to let go of Pearl’s hand to eat his lunch but he kept a thigh snug against hers. So her birthday was only three weeks away. He filed that information away. Later he’d plan something special for her birthday. Maybe a quiet dinner for two with watermelon wine, rose petals, and satin sheets.

“I’m going over to Nocona to look at a good used tractor. Rancher over there has three for sale. I’m thinkin’ about buyin’ one. Want to go with me?” Wil asked Pearl.

“I’m driving,” Pearl said.

“No, I am driving,” he argued.

“I meant I drove over here in the Caddy.”

“Go on. I’ll drive the Caddy back to the Longhorn when I’m finished talking to the owner. I promise I won’t hurt it,” Jasmine said.

“And I’ll tattle if she goes too fast or takes any stupid chances,” Lucy said.

“I don’t know much about tractors, except how to drive them,” Pearl said.

Martha Jane turned her head so fast that her neck popped loudly. “You know how to drive a tractor?”

“Sure she does,” Jasmine said. “Her father works at Texas Instruments, but he’s also got this big old cattle ranch over south of Sherman. He made her plow fields every spring and summer. Her mother about died at the thought of her baby girl out there on a tractor but John said it was good for her. One summer he made both of us work a whole week in the fields as punishment.”

“What did you do?” Lucy asked.

“We got into Daddy’s good bourbon and then filled the bottle up with water so he wouldn’t miss the liquor,” Pearl said.

“John Richland is your father?” Martha Jane said slowly.

Pearl nodded. “Don’t tar and feather me and run me out of town on a rail because of my heritage.”

“He’s bought cattle at our sale. Brought your mother to our sale last year. We had a very nice visit at the dinner afterwards. So you are her daughter. I would have never guessed.”

“I look like an ancestor on Daddy’s side and I’m afraid I got her quick temper, too. It’s a sore spot with Momma who is a prim and proper southern lady,” Pearl said.

Wil’s dark eyebrows knit together in a solid line. “A southern lady?”

Pearl patted his arm. “You’ll do fine when you meet her on Sunday. You aren’t going to back out, are you?”

“I keep telling you that I’ll be there,” he said.

She nodded. It wasn’t easy to believe him, but then he’d never lied to her. It was that niggling old thing from her past that kept raising its ugly head to torment her. Vince’s mother hated her enough to send him away. Martha Jane apologized, but how would she really, really feel about a red-haired daughter-in-law?

Pearl nodded. “Just don’t bring up great-granny Richland. She was a McDougal before she married and spoke with an Irish lilt. Daddy said she was wild Irish to the bone and had flaming red hair,” Pearl said.

Wil polished off the last of his steak and pushed his plate back. “Okay, I’ll remember that. You going with me to look at tractors?”

“I don’t think so,” Pearl said.

“Go on,” Jasmine told her. “Lucy already said she’ll keep me in line.”

“Okay, but I need to be back in Henrietta by three for check-ins,” she said.

“I can do that. You get her back by bedtime though,” Lucy said.

***

Wil kept time to the country music coming from the radio with his thumb on the steering wheel as they drove east. The sky was winter blue with only a few wispy clouds on the horizon.

“You think Jasmine will really buy that café?” he asked when they reached the outskirts of Nocona.

Pearl nodded.

“Think she’ll get tired of it in six months and shut it down?”

Pearl shook her head.

“Not very talkative today, are you?”

“Well, you didn’t set the cab on fire with conversation the whole way over here so don’t blame me for the quietness. We’re like a wildfire, Wil. It’s hot as hell and destructive when it’s burning, but it dies out pretty quick. It scares me that we might be just two people who’ve had a helluva lot of wild, hot sex and there’s nothing left.”

He turned right and stopped the truck after he crossed the cattle guard. “You really believe that?”

“I don’t want to believe it but…” She let the sentence hang.

He pulled her across the seat to sit close to him, took her cheeks in his hands, and kissed her all over the face until she was giggling. The final kiss landed on her lips and there was no doubt between them that the fire was a helluva lot more than a flash in the pan. He drove on and parked the truck in front of a barn.

She let herself out of the truck and yelled at the elderly man coming out of the barn. “Hear you got some tractors for sale.”

He pushed his sweat-stained old straw hat back on his head and grinned. “I got three for sale. How many you wantin’ to drive home today, darlin’?”

His striped overalls were worn at the knees and hung on his lanky frame; his boots scuffed and down at the heels; his work jacket had patches on the elbows. He reminded Pearl of a scarecrow set out in the middle of a pumpkin patch to keep the birds from pecking holes in the pumpkins.

“Never know. If they are a buck ninety-nine a piece, I might just take them all three,” she said.

“I reckon they’ll be a sight higher than that but I bet me and you can reach some kind of agreement. You like John Deere?”

“Love that shade of green.” She ran a hand over the biggest tractor like she was petting a horse. “Looks like you take care of your equipment.”

“Honey, my wife, God rest her soul, told me when we married that if I kept my barn and equipment as clean as she kept her house and her cookstove we’d get along fine. We made it sixty years. I’m Farris Smith. Who are you?”

“I’m Pearl. Your wife was a wise woman. Interested in selling her cookstove?” Pearl hopped up in the seat and wrapped her hands around the steering wheel.

“No, honey. My daughter wants it.”

“And I’m Wil Marshall, Mr. Smith.” Wil extended his hand. “I’m the one who called about the tractors. You say you got three for sale?”

Farris had a firm handshake in spite of his bony, veined hands. “That’s right. I’m sellin’ off what I can and then I’m goin’ to make the folks who bought the farm a deal on what’s left over,” he said.

Wil walked around the middle-sized tractor that was in mint condition. It wasn’t new but it looked as if it had just rolled out of a display room.

“Why didn’t they want it all?” he asked.

“Got their own equipment. Live right next door. That’d be two section lines down the road. I got two sections and they’re makin’ their place double in size,” he explained. “Your wife is a pretty little thing. Bet she’s hell on wheels. Can you keep up with her?”

Pearl hopped off the tractor and joined the two men. Wil pulled her tight against him and kissed her on the top of the head.

“It’s tough but I manage. You know how these redheads are. They got a temper and you got to stay a step ahead of ’em all the time.”

Farris chuckled. “I sure do. My wife was a little short package like her. Didn’t have red hair but had them same green eyes.”

Pearl played along. “We got to have a temper or you old cowboys would run right over us.”

“She even sounds like my wife. You take care of her, Wil. Them kind is hard to come by. Now about these here tractors. I’ve got each one of them priced separate, but if you was willin’ to take all three I’d make you a mighty fine deal.”

“I don’t need but one. Maybe the middle-sized one,” Wil said.

“How good of a deal you talkin’ about?” Pearl asked.

“Tell you what. I ain’t had my dinner yet so I’m goin’ in the house and eat. Keys are in the tractors and there’s forty acres behind the barn of nothin’ but plowed up ground. Take them out there and run them around the field a few times. See which one you want and then we’ll talk money.” With a wave, he headed for the house, a gray frame ranch style place to the west of the barn.

Pearl shook loose from Wil and climbed up in the biggest tractor and looked down at him.

“You really know how to work the gears on that thing?” he asked.

She smiled at him, turned the key, and shut the door. She backed the tractor up, drove it around the barn and out into the field. It handled like a Caddy compared to the old worn out piece of crap her father had made her drive all week in the hay field that summer she and Jasmine got into trouble. It had a closed cab, air conditioning, and even a radio.

Wil folded his hands across his chest and leaned against the rough wood at the back of the barn. She didn’t grind the gears a single time and the tractor purred like a kitten in her hands. When she reached the end of the field, she turned around without a hitch and drove it back to the barn.

She hopped down from the cab, landed square on her feet, and looked up at him. “Drives like a Caddy. Air conditioning and heat works fine. Radio picks up the country music station in Dallas loud and clear. Gears are tight. Cab is clean as the day it was bought. You can test this one while I see how the mid-sized one handles.”

“Don’t need to. I could see and hear it just fine. Take the next one around the field. It’s the one I’m most interested in,” Wil said.

“Don’t get in a hurry about making up your mind. He might make you a deal you can’t turn down on the whole lot of them. Bank would loan you the money on good equipment like this in a heartbeat,” she said.

Wil bit back a grin. He didn’t need to borrow money. He had cattle to outfit his ranch before he bought it and money left over after the sale from his rodeo days.

She drove the next tractor around the field and brought it back. “Just as well kept up as the bigger one. He’s used this one more. Ask about how many hours are on each one. I’ll bet this one has more than any of them because the seat is worn down more and the radio knob is looser.”

When she’d driven the smaller one and parked it she said, “This is my favorite. I betcha his wife drove it because I can almost smell her perfume still lingering in there. It turns on a dime and if I had a ranch I’d buy it. Aren’t you going to drive them?”

Wil shook his head. “He’ll bring his books to show me how many hours they’ve been used and the upkeep. He looks honest. We’ll see what his askin’ price is on each one.”

She bounced up on the tailgate of the pickup truck and swung her legs like a little girl. Driving the tractors had been fun. “So tell me, why are you buying more equipment?”

“I told you already. The ranch next to mine is going to be up for grabs before long and I’d like to expand. More land could run more cattle. The Lazy M takes care of itself, which means I raise my own feed for my cattle. So more cattle means more hay, which needs more land. I could use one more tractor right now. If I buy the land next to mine, I’ll need at least two more and a bunkhouse so I can hire more help. Jack and I do fairly well but it stretches us pretty thin in the spring and summer.”

“You like ranchin’, don’t you?”

He sat down beside her, his thigh tight against hers. “I love it. It’s all I’ve ever known.”

“You sound like my dad.”

“Is that a good thing?”

“He says that his job gets in the way of his ranchin’.”

“Guess it’s a good thing, then.”

“So which one are you going to buy and how much are you willin’ to pay for it?” she asked.

“Depends on how many hours are on each one. I could use the big one but the middle-sized one is probably more in my price range,” he said.

The back door of the house slammed and Farris took his time getting from the yard to the barn. He had a toothpick in the corner of his mouth and a quart jar of sweet tea in his hand.

“My wife woulda fussed at me for not offerin’ y’all something to drink. You want some tea I’ll go on back in the house and fix you up a jar full.”

“We’re good,” Wil said. “You got some nice equipment here. Could I see the books to see how many hours are on each one?”

“Big boy there has three hundred. The middle one is the one I used the most and she’s got four hundred and fifty. Little girl was Momma’s tractor. She liked to get out in the field ever so often just to show me that she was still the boss. I hate to sell her but there ain’t no way I need her where I’m goin’. She’s got two hundred hours on her.” Farris leaned on the fender of the truck and looked lovingly at the three tractors.

Pearl patted his hand. “Got lots of good memories in those green things, haven’t you?”