Love Drunk Cowboy Read online

  “House smelled all musty when I came over this morning. It’s been shut up for six months, and other than me comin’ by last week when the guys came from Mexico, no one’s been inside,” he said as he shut the final window in the living room. “Didn’t think about a dirt storm.”

  “Well, shhh… crap! My suitcases are in the back of my car. Do you think the dust got in them?”

  He held out his hand. “Give me your keys and I’ll go bring them in for you.”

  She fished around in her purse until she located them and put them in his hand.

  He had to control his breathing when her fingertips touched his palm. Dammit! He was thirty-two years old, not sixteen. He’d been in love. He’d had girlfriends and serious relationships. What was it about Austin Lanier that built a fire in his gut?

  Austin removed the envelopes from her purse and laid them on the bar. Then she went to the window and watched his fine looking rear end as he hurried to her car in the dust storm. If he’d walked into her oil company a dozen women would have hog-tied him and carried him off to the nearest broom closet. That brought on a jealous streak that wiped the grin off her face and replaced it with a frown. Sure they’d talked lots of times but she’d only met the man that day. She had no right to be jealous. Maybe he had a girlfriend, a fiancée, or maybe he was just being nice to her because he’d loved her granny like his own grandmother.

  He set her suitcases inside the door and shut it behind him, went to the thermostat on the wall, and adjusted it to blow cool air. “It’s too warm with the windows down. We usually have to use the air-conditioner a few hours about this time of year. I still got feed to unload so I’ll be going. Oh, I put the dye for the eggs up on the refrigerator in case you want to do some tonight. But I bet you are too tired to mess with them, aren’t you?”

  “I told you I’m not dying eggs. Not tonight or tomorrow.”

  “See you later,” he said.

  She opened her mouth to argue more but he was gone before she could get a word out. Mumbling all the way about Easter eggs, she hauled her suitcase down the short hallway to her old bedroom. Nothing had changed. It still had a twin-sized bed pushed up against the east wall, a dresser on the west wall, and a fluffy pink rug between the two. A picture of Eddie when he graduated from Terral High School was framed and took center stage on the dresser. One of him and her mother on their wedding day was on the left and Austin’s senior picture on the right. More than a dozen smaller ones were scattered around them. Pictures of Austin at a ballet recital. She picked it up and frowned. She must have been ten because that was the last year she took dancing lessons. The next one she picked up was one of her with her mother and father at her college graduation.

  She put the picture back and threw her suitcase up on the bed. In half an hour it was unpacked, her clothes hung up, underpants and pajamas in the one empty dresser drawer, and she was removing her dusty suit jacket that would definitely need a trip to the dry cleaners when she got back to Tulsa.

  She heard someone knock on the kitchen door and then Felix yelled her name. She kicked off her shoes and padded barefoot through the living room.

  “Hello, come on in. I was in the back of the house. Here’s your money.” She picked up the envelopes on her way to where he stood just inside the door and handed them to him.

  “Could I get pickup keys too?”

  She unhooked the keys from a rack at the end of the bar.

  “Not those. That is Miz Lanier’s fancy new truck keys. The ones on the other side with the red keychain is the old work truck.”

  She replaced the keys and picked the other set off the rack. “Where is this new truck?”

  “She keeps it in the shed behind the house. The old work truck is parked in the backyard. It is so old the weather and dust storms don’t do much damage.”

  “Why don’t you just keep those keys while you are here? That way, if you need something from town you can go get it.”

  “Thank you.” Felix grinned.

  ***

  She really meant to take a quick bath in the big claw-footed tub but when she sunk down in the warm water, she groaned and leaned her head back on a rolled towel. She’d forgotten how well her body fit in the tub and just how deep it was. She shut her eyes and a picture of Rye appeared instantly. She snapped them open so fast she swore she could hear the pop.

  She was not going to think about that man even if he was the best eye candy she’d seen in months. She lazed in the water until it went cold, contemplated letting part of the water out and refilling it with hot, but didn’t. She stepped out and wrapped a big white towel around her body. She dried her hair, brushed her teeth, dressed in a pair of soft knit pajamas, and opened the door to her grandmother’s bedroom but couldn’t make herself go inside. She had at least five hours before bedtime and she could get a lot done in that time but she was mentally exhausted. She couldn’t face packing a single box or going through even one dresser drawer that day. All she wanted to do was curl up in an easy chair and shut her eyes. On Thursday she’d call the old man, Rye, like she always did and they’d have their usual conversation. But a quick reality check told her that nothing was normal and wouldn’t be again. Granny was gone. She wasn’t coming back. Rye wasn’t an old man. He was a helluva sexy cowboy.

  Tomorrow after the lawyer came and went she’d get serious about the business of packing up Granny’s things. She’d done enough for one day. She went to the living room, turned on the television, channel surfed until she found reruns of NCIS, and settled into the worn recliner where her grandmother had always sat.

  ***

  Kent left at five thirty but Rye worked until dark with Austin on his mind all evening. He finally got the tractor in running order and drove his old work truck back to his house. When he removed his shirt and tossed it at the dirty clothes hamper he realized he hadn’t changed clothes after he’d driven Austin to Ryan. His favorite Sunday shirt now had big round ugly oil stains all over the front. He looked down at his jeans and groaned. They’d come from the cleaners just last week and hadn’t even been worn until that day. Now they had grass stains on the knees, oil on the hip pockets where he’d wiped his hands, and a nice two-inch tear down the thigh.

  His best boots had weathered a dust storm, waded through a feed lot and the pasture, as well as kicked the tractor wheel more than once. It would take a week to get them back to the shine they’d had that morning when he put them on to go to the cafe.

  “What was I thinking?” he said.

  He went to the window in the kitchen and looked out across the road at the little white house. The blue light flickering from the living room said that Austin had the television on. What was she watching? Did she like old movies like he did? What would it be like to share his oversized recliner and a bottle of cold beer with her while they watched a movie?

  He stood there for a full ten minutes before he went to the kitchen and opened the refrigerator. He pulled out a container of leftover lasagna, put it in a pan and slid it into the oven, turned the knobs, and headed for the shower.

  It took awhile to get all the oil and dirt from under his fingernails and three shampoos before the water ran clear out of his hair. When he finished he wrapped a towel around his waist and padded back to his bedroom in the far left corner of the house. He pulled the blinds up and looked at the house across the road again. She was still watching television. Had she fallen asleep?

  “It’s only eight thirty,” he said. If he dressed in a hurry would it be too late to run over there with the lasagna? There was plenty for two and she probably hadn’t had anything since ice cream in the middle of the afternoon.

  He grabbed a fresh pair of jeans from the closet and tossed the towel in the corner. He pulled a knit shirt over his head and took off for the bathroom to see if he needed to shave again. The plague of having dark hair was that a man’s beard was also dark and either he looked scruffy or he shaved every day… twice if he wanted to impress a lady.

&nb
sp; He had his nose right up next to the mirror when he got a snoot full of smoke. “The lasagna!” he yelled and rushed into the kitchen.

  When he opened the oven a blast of black smoke billowed out and up his nose. He hurriedly turned on the exhaust fan above the stove and opened the kitchen window. So much for taking a late supper across the road. He pulled the smoking pan from the oven and carried it to the deck off the living room where he put it on the picnic table and left the sliding doors open.

  He sat down in a lounge chair and put his head in his hands. He’d had more bad luck since he’d met Austin than he’d ever had in his life and still he could hardly keep from inventing an excuse to cross that road to see her again.

  Chapter 3

  It was Saturday morning, the day before Easter, which fell on the first Sunday in April that year. No matter where Austin was, Saturday was her day to sleep in. She didn’t care that research had shown that missed sleep couldn’t ever be reclaimed. She put in long, hard hours all week and she slept on Saturday morning. Neither psychological nor physical proof meant squat to her. She didn’t care what the specialist in Vogue magazine said about the issue or if Professor Know-It-All had proven beyond a doubt that one day of sleeping in did not atone for five nights of working late; sleeping in on Saturday caught her up on missed sleep and if she didn’t get it she was bitchy.

  The sun was barely up when she was awakened to rattling pots and pans banging in the kitchen. She put a pillow over her head but it didn’t go away. She groaned, looked at the alarm clock, and sat straight up in bed when she realized she wasn’t in her apartment in Tulsa. If that wasn’t Granny Lanier resurrected from ashes and come back to life, then whoever was in there had better be able to run fast or else like the sting of rock salt on their hind ends. Because Austin fully well intended to jerk that shotgun from behind the door and start shooting. She didn’t bother pulling on a robe or slipping her feet into house shoes but stormed down the hallway muttering curses the whole way.

  “What the hell are you doing?” She popped both hands on her hips and glared at Rye O’Donnell. “Do you know what time it is?”

  He poured a cup of coffee and set it on the kitchen table. Damn, but she was cute in those pajamas with her hair all tousled. She didn’t have a bit of makeup on and yet she still looked gorgeous. He laid a hand on her shoulder and steered her to a chair. “Drink that. It will wake you up.”

  A night’s sleep hadn’t taken the jolt of electricity away when he touched her shoulder. The steam rising up off the boiling eggs was cool compared to his hand and yet there was a deep desire to pick her up, carry her to that big recliner in the living room, and hold her until she woke up.

  “I don’t want to be awake. I told you I sleep late on Saturday.” She grumbled to cover up the way his mere touch made her knees go all weak and rubbery.

  She wanted to be grumpy. She wanted to be mad until the next Saturday when she planned to sleep in, but his smile sure knocked a hole in that idea. That and his red-hot touch on her shoulder didn’t do a damn thing but make her want to grin back at him. She picked up the coffee and sipped but she was not going to dye Easter eggs. If he wanted that gazillion eggs all colored up and pretty then he could dye all day. When she finished her coffee, she was going right back to bed.

  “I told you that we dye eggs every year for the Easter egg hunt. I promised Granny Lanier that I would keep up the tradition for her and I’m going to, with or without you,” he said.

  The coffee was just like Granny made and ten times better than Starbucks. The second sip woke her up a little more. She shouldn’t finish drinking the whole cup or she’d never go back to sleep, but it was so good she kept sipping. “It’s not even seven o’clock!”

  “If you’ll step out on the porch, there’s a beautiful sunrise putting on a show just for you,” Rye said.

  More than the aroma of good coffee wafted to Austin. He had shaved recently and the aroma of his shaving lotion blended with the coffee smell and good Lord, was that bacon frying in the electric skillet? A man that dyed Easter eggs, cooked breakfast, and looked like he just walked out of a western movie. It wasn’t fair that he lived in Terral and not Tulsa.

  “How do you like your eggs?” he asked.

  “In an omelet with tomatoes and mushrooms.”

  “Don’t have fresh things in the fridge and the garden won’t be ready for weeks so it’ll have to be with ham and cheese.”

  “Why’d you ask if you were going to make them that way?”

  “So I’ll know next time. Get that smaller skillet out from under the bar and you can stir the sausage for gravy while I keep the bacon turned.”

  “This is my house.”

  He pointed at the bar. “Yep, it is. After today you’ll know there are two electric skillets that we use on Easter weekend when we need all the burners on the stove to boil eggs.”

  She set her mug on the bar and pulled out the small skillet. “Sausage, ham, cheese, and bacon. I’ll gain ten pounds on breakfast alone.”

  “And you’ll work every bit of it off on a watermelon farm. Plug that in and crumble the sausage…”

  “I know how to make gravy. I don’t need a lesson.” Her tone had softened and she almost smiled.

  His eyes twinkled every time he glanced her way. “Good. The biscuits are already in the oven. Out of a can because my biscuits have to be registered with the police as weapons. Granny never could teach me how to make decent biscuits. If you can make them like hers we’ll go on to the courthouse in Waurika and get married today.”

  She gasped.

  “Don’t faint. I was teasing. I’m not in the market for a wife even if it is a sore spot with my family.” He said the words but his heart didn’t believe them for one minute. If Austin had turned around and said she would marry him right then he’d have scooped her up in those cute little pajamas and carried her out to this truck before she could change her mind.

  Good Lord, what in the hell am I thinking? I’m not ready for marriage. Austin is hot and I’d love to date her, but marriage? I don’t think so.

  She cut off a fourth of the roll of pork sausage and put it in the skillet, fished an egg turner from the drawer under the bar, and stomped it into tiny pieces. Her stomach growled as the smell of the sausage blended with the other breakfast aromas in the small kitchen. On weekdays she grabbed a Starbucks on the way to work and called that breakfast. On Saturday she had a late brunch with her mother at the dealership which usually consisted of a bagel with cream cheese and a cappuccino with skim milk and extra vanilla. It had been years since she’d had a big country breakfast, probably the last time she was in Terral.

  Traitor, she thought as she touched her noisy stomach. One day in this place and you already want to dive right into country eating.

  “After we eat breakfast, that batch of eggs should be ready to put in a sink full of cold water and we’ll start the next batch to boiling.”

  “I told you…”

  “I know and, darlin’, if you don’t get the Easter fever the first time you dip an egg into dye, you can put on them fancy shoes and go on about your business. Granny and I did this every year. Several years ago the folks decided to use plastic eggs and fill them with candy, but not Granny. She said that bunnies didn’t lay eggs one day a year to be replaced by store-bought plastic eggs and as long as she was alive there would be real eggs. She carried enough clout in town that no one argued with her, but no one would help either so I got recruited. From day one I loved it. I’m doing it this year in memory of her.”

  “Okay, okay, I’ll help. No more guilt trips.”

  Rye’s face lit up when he looked down at her in the close quarters. He raised the fork he was using to turn the bacon and said, “Be it known that this country boy will never buy a plastic egg. He vows to uphold the tradition of the real Easter egg until his dying day.”

  “We’ve got a lawyer coming around in a few hours. I’ll get him to work up an affidavit and notarize your signat
ure on that profound statement.”

  A sensitive man with his looks. Just what you’ve been searching for, young lady.

  Austin could swear her grandmother’s voice had entered her head or else the old girl had come back to life and was standing behind her. She looked over her shoulder but the only person there was Rye in his tight fitting jeans, a three button yellow knit shirt with a slightly wrinkled collar, and dark hair that needed a trim two weeks before. He really was what she’d been searching for, but why did she have to find him in Terral, Oklahoma, right on the edge of hell?

  I’ve told you all about him for years. Didn’t you listen to a blessed thing I said? He’s a good, honest man. Verline’s voice argued with common sense inside Austin’s head.

  Austin had said, “We have a lawyer coming.” That little word “we” put another big smile on Rye’s face as he turned the bacon to be sure it was cooked just right. He stole long sideways glances at Austin as she stirred the gravy, amazed at how comfortable she was in the kitchen. He’d found a woman who set his heart to doing double time but she was a fancy lady, not someone who’d be at home at a rodeo or riding beside him on a tractor. Now what was he supposed to do and where did he start?

  She looks like she’s pretty well at home in the kitchen and that’s a plus. He could hear Gemma’s arguments. Come on, Rye. If you don’t get married soon our parents are going to be too damned old to even enjoy their grandchildren.

  Hey, he argued silently with his youngest sister, it’s not written on stone that I have to marry before the rest of you do. Don’t wait on me.

  Irish rules, remember. Daddy said we got to do it in the right order and I’m getting tired of waiting on you. We’re all going to be gray haired and walking with canes by the time you find someone that’ll meet the long list of ridiculous qualifications you’ve got. I wish you’d never gotten that damned tattoo.

  He was gazing out the kitchen window without seeing a thing.