by Laura Drake
“And now?” She pressed even closer to him.
He buried his face in her hair. “Now, I feel free. I’m happy. I can’t imagine life without you in it. I was terrified I’d wreck the truck and hurt you, and I’m exhausted, Allie. Can we take a short nap together before we get lucky? I’ve got the worst adrenaline letdown I’ve ever had.”
“Me, too. Let’s take a short nap.” She still couldn’t utter the L word.
“Sleep first, then a fancy vending machine supper, then making love, more sleep, and more vending machine food. Sounds like a good plan to me…” His voice trailed off and his eyes fluttered shut.
The phone setting on the nightstand not two feet from her face woke her. At first, she thought it was the alarm and then she felt Blake’s naked body wrapped around her and remembered the whole evening. She opened one eye and checked the clock. It flipped another minute making it 11:11. That meant she could make a wish and it would come true. Sure it was superstition, but she and both her sisters had believed it since they were kids. The first person who saw all four ones lined up on the clock got to make a wish.
She brought one hand out and reached for the remote phone receiver. “Yes?”
“This is the front desk. I got a call from a feller named Deke saying to tell Blake Dawson that he has Shooter at his house. Cell phone towers are down all around us so he couldn’t get through to you that way.”
“Thank you,” Allie said.
“Weatherman says that it’s supposed to let up by midnight, but I wouldn’t bank on the roads being cleared tomorrow. Y’all want me to pencil you in for another night?”
“Yes, please,” Allie said.
“Will do. If you need anything I’m right here all night.”
“What was that all about?” Blake asked.
“Deke has Shooter at his place. Evidently he found out from Mama that we’re in the motel in Archer City and got the number to call here so you wouldn’t be worried,” she answered.
“Hungry?” he asked.
“Me or Shooter?”
“You.” He grinned.
“Yes, but not for food. I’m reversing the order of the evening. First it’s making love, then food, and then we’ll talk about the rest. And Blake, I love you, too,” she said. The words came out so slick that she didn’t realize she’d said them until his lips were on hers.
Chapter Twenty-six
Blake could hardly believe it was already February. Allie had said that she loved him and things had been good since those three wonderful days in the motel when they’d lived on vending machine food, takeout pizza, and lots of sex. Two weeks had passed since then and their relationship had grown deeper with the passing of each day. The next step was to pop the question and open a pretty red velvet box to reveal a ring, wasn’t it?
All those sparkling diamonds displayed in a jewelry store window had always made Blake shield his eyes and hurry across the street. But now a ring was all he could think about. He wanted to spend the rest of his life with her, but was he rushing things? Buying the ring didn’t mean he had to give it to her before summer. Six months seemed like the appropriate time to wait after the “I love you” to the “Will you marry me?” He would have months to plan the perfect setting and the ring would be ready for that magical moment.
The plan had to be right because thinking the words didn’t give him hives. Only the online jewelry stores had so much to offer that he couldn’t choose, and then he worried that he might select something similar to her first wedding rings. He worried with it all afternoon and finally decided the only thing to do was ask Lizzy and hope to hell she didn’t pull out the gun from under the counter and start shooting.
“Hey, gorgeous!” he yelled down the hall toward Allie as he and Shooter came through the kitchen door. “I’m going to Lizzy’s store. You need me to pick up anything?”
Allie’s head bobbed down from an exposed rafter in the living room ceiling. “Not a thing. Lizzy is lonely with Mitch away. Want to ask her to join us for supper at Nadine’s tonight?”
“I’ll ask her. See you later. Be careful up there.” He blew her a kiss.
Luck was with him. No one was in the store when he arrived that chilly February afternoon.
Lizzy looked up from the counter and smiled. “Fence posts?”
“Wedding rings,” he said.
“I don’t sell those things.”
“Lizzy, I love Allie and I want to spend my life with her.”
“Don’t tell me. Tell her.”
“I need rings and I need help before I do that.”
Lizzy smiled. “I can’t believe I’m saying this but I believe you and I’m happy for you both. Now what can I do?”
Allie sat between Blake and Deke in the back pew at the church on Sunday morning. One arm around her shoulders pulled her close enough to hear the steady rhythm of his heartbeat. His fingers interlaced with hers shot delicious little tingles throughout her body. This was the man she’d fallen in love with, part dependable and the other part pure sexy pleasure.
The preacher took the podium, opened his Bible, and looked out over the congregation.
Blake squeezed her hand. “Bet he speaks from that love chapter in Corinthians. Valentine’s Day is a week from today.”
“As all you folks know, Valentine’s Day is next Sunday,” the preacher said.
“Glad I didn’t make that bet,” Allie whispered.
“And the ladies tell me that we’re having a potluck in the fellowship hall immediately after church that day. Everyone is invited and I’m sure there will be plenty of food. Nadine has said she’s not opening the café that day so y’all best plan on having dinner here with us.” He chuckled. “And now if you will open your Bibles to the love chapter in Corinthians and follow along with me while I talk to you about what all love can do in your lives, both in relationships and friendships…”
“Two for two.” Blake kissed her on the earlobe and the tingles turned into hot little sparks.
Allie wished they were anywhere but church. But then the pews were wider than the backseat of his truck and longer than the kitchen table and she was still a church pew virgin. She blushed and Blake chuckled.
“Thinking something that will bring down lightning?” Blake asked.
She brought his ear close to her mouth. “More like it would rain hellfire down through the roof. You ever had sex on a church pew?”
“Pick one out. I’m game if you are,” he said.
The preacher finished his sermon by saying something about love and then said, “Don’t forget the social potluck next Sunday and now I’m going to ask Blake Dawson to end our service with the benediction.”
Everyone stood and Blake, bless his cowboy heart, said a two-minute prayer without missing a beat. It couldn’t have been easy with the picture Allie had put in his mind, but he managed.
“That was downright mean,” he said as soon as everyone else echoed his Amen at the end of the prayer. “I bet he saw us whispering.”
“I’m just glad he didn’t ask me to do it,” Allie said.
Blake was so damn nervous that he could hardly be still during Sunday dinner at Nadine’s after church. It had more to do with the ring box in his pocket than the four women sitting around the table with him. Having it in his pocket made him want to put it on her finger. He wondered how in the world he’d ever wait six months.
“So one more week and Mitch is coming home, right?” Blake asked Lizzy.
She nodded. “The day after Valentine’s Day, less than a month from our wedding day. The church is planning a wedding shower the week after he gets home.”
“And where are you going to live?” Blake asked.
“He rents an apartment in Wichita Falls, not far from the church where he hopes to fill the preacher’s shoes in the summer when he retires. Right now he helps out when the preacher needs to be gone or wants a week off.”
Blake nodded, his mind on the ring. “And you’ll commute to work?”
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“It’s a distance but…” She shrugged.
“If the weather is bad, she can always stay with us,” Katy said.
“Crazy damn notion if you ask me, which nobody did,” Irene piped up. “They could live halfway between the two places or he could commute but oh, no, not Mitch. He’s got to be in control.”
“Granny!” Lizzy exclaimed.
Allie raised an eyebrow in Blake’s direction. “Looks like you stirred up a hornets’ nest.”
“I’ll fix it,” he whispered, and then said, “Miz Irene, can you believe that it’s such a beautiful day when two weeks ago the whole area was covered in a foot of snow?”
“It’s Texas. If you don’t like the weather, stick around. It will change. And the only thing that’s dependable in this place is that in the summer it’s going to be hotter’n the blue blazes of hell. I’m hungry. Is Nadine having to wring that turkey’s neck and pick the feathers before she can make my turkey and dressin’ dinner plate?” she answered.
Katy laughed. “At least it won’t be that frozen crap that you hate, Mama. I think the waitress is bringing our dinner right now.”
“Well, I hope so. I’d like to live to see my sixtieth birthday.”
“Granny, you will be seventy-one on your birthday,” Lizzy said.
Mary Jo set their plates in front of them. “Be careful. The plates are hot.”
“I’m old, not stupid,” Irene said.
“And don’t you look beautiful today.” Mary Jo stopped to give her a hug.
“Granny, you were rude,” Lizzy said.
“For that smartass remark and since you are bound, damned, and determined to marry that worthless son-of-a-bitch, wannabe preacher, you can say grace before we eat this good food.”
Lizzy dropped her chin and said softly, “Father, thank you for this food. Forgive Granny for her dirty language and the rest of us for our sins. Amen.”
“That wasn’t a prayer. God didn’t even hear that short two sentences,” Irene fussed.
“It’s enough, Mama. Eat your dinner,” Katy said.
Irene picked up her fork. “Okay, but if I die tonight and God won’t let me in the pearly gates because I ate unblessed food, then I’m going to tell him it’s y’all’s fault.”
Blake chuckled. “I think I’m fallin’ in love with her.”
Irene’s head popped up. “Who’s fallin’ in love with who?”
“No one, Granny. I hear Nadine made cherry pies and she’s got ice cream and chocolate syrup,” Allie said.
“I said that I was falling in love with you,” Blake said.
“Bullshit! I’m old. You’re not in love with me. You are in love with Allie.”
Blake nodded. “You are right. I have fallen in love with Allie. I’m downright crazy in love with this woman and I don’t care who all knows it.”
Irene clapped her hands.
Allie blushed.
“Hey, if you can declare that I’m your boyfriend right here in the middle of this café, I can tell the whole world I’m in love with you in the same place.” Blake leaned to his left, tipped her chin up with his fist, and kissed her right there in public.
“Well, would you look at that, Katy? I think he means it?” Irene giggled.
“I was going to wait for a private moment, but this seems like a perfect place and time.” He pushed back his chair and dropped down on one knee. “Allie Logan, I love you. Plain and simple and I can’t imagine life without you. Will you marry me?”
He flipped open a red velvet ring box to reveal a brown diamond solitaire ring surrounded by more than a dozen sparkling clear diamonds. “I chose this because it’s the color of your eyes.”
“Yes!” she said without hesitation.
He slipped the ring onto her finger, picked her up out of the chair, and swung her around the floor several times before his lips settled on hers. Most of the folks in the café clapped. The ones who didn’t were already talking on their phones.
Later that afternoon, Allie held the ring up to catch the sunlight pouring into the bedroom. “I can’t believe you proposed right there in public.”
Blake wrapped his hand around hers and brought the ring to her face. “That brown diamond is the same color as your eyes. Darlin’, it was either propose or explode. I knew I wouldn’t be able to swallow that good food until I asked you to marry me.”
“We need to talk,” she said.
“Oh, no!” He fell back on the pillows. “I hate it when you say that.”
“Well, we do.”
“Please don’t tell me you aren’t going to marry me,” he groaned.
“Oh, honey, I’m going to marry you, but I’m fixin’ to give you a way out if you don’t want to be burdened with what I’m about to say.” She swallowed twice and started three times but the words wouldn’t come out. “Hell’s bells, Blake, this is tough.”
Blake propped up on an elbow. “Just spit it out.”
“I was married for two years and sexually active for two years before that. We were young and stupid the first two years. After we married we wanted children, but it never happened and Riley said it was my fault,” she said slowly.
“And what has that got to do with us?”
She shrugged. “I’m three days late and we haven’t even talked about kids because I told you I couldn’t have any. But I’ve never been late and now I’m thinkin’ maybe Riley lied to me about going to the doctor to get tested.” She stopped to catch her breath.
Blake pulled her into his arms and kissed the top of her head. “I want kids, but I want you more. If you are pregnant, then I hope it’s twins so we’ll get a jump on a house full. If you aren’t and you really can’t have them, then someday in the future we might discuss adoption if you want them.”
She pushed back and let the tears loose to stream down her cheeks. “I love you with my whole heart and what you just said makes me say yes to your proposal all over again. Let’s get married this week.”
“Sounds great to me, but don’t take the test until afterward. I don’t ever want you to feel like I married you because I had to. I’m marrying you because I love you, Allie.” He kissed away her tears.
“You are trying to make a ranch here. A wife wasn’t in your four-year plan and I know a baby wasn’t.”
“We’ll take them when we get them and if we never get them, then we have each other. Did you have your mind set on a big wedding?”
“Hell, no!” she said loudly. “Let’s go get a license at the courthouse before Friday, get married on Sunday morning after church, and the potluck can be our reception. I want to be a wife, not a fiancée.”
He laid a hand on her flat stomach. “I love you, Allie.”
“I love you, too, Blake,” she said.
Chapter Twenty-seven
You cannot wear that.” Lizzy was absolutely aghast that Sunday morning. “You are getting married, not going to stand on the street corner to solicit business.”
“It’s Valentine’s Day. I like red, and Blake is wearing a red tie so this is it. Besides remember our roots, Lizzy.” Allie smiled. “I’ll be the hooker bride. You can be the snow white virgin bride.”
“I’m not a virgin. Haven’t been since I was eighteen,” Lizzy said tersely.
Allie leaned in close to the mirror and applied eyeliner. “You might as well be one as long as it’s been since you’ve had a good romp in the bed. When your Mitch comes home, take him to a motel and jump his bones. It’ll make you feel a hell of a lot better.”
“That wild cowboy has made you as rowdy as he is.” Lizzy laughed.
“Yes, he has, and I love it and him for doing it. Now let’s go to church and have a wedding afterward, then we can eat all that lovely food. And Lizzy, thank you one more time for helping me move all my things over to the Lucky Penny. I can’t believe I’ll be waking up tomorrow in my new home.”
Lizzy laid a hand on her shoulder. “Or that it’s this close to Mama and Granny. I envy you, sister.”
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Allie turned around and hugged Lizzy tightly. “I’m not going to think about you having to live all the way up there in the city. I’ll miss you so much.”
“Don’t talk about it or we’ll both cry and mess up our makeup. I’ve got to stand up beside you at the wedding and I don’t need to have black streaks down my face. Who is Blake’s best man? Deke?”
Allie took a step back. “No, it’s his brother, Toby.”
“Well, you will have a few months before he moves in to enjoy the honeymoon,” Lizzy sniffed. “At least Mitch and I won’t have another person living with us.”
“But Grady will be there every day, I betcha. And with Deke in and out every day, we’re already used to an extra person around,” Allie told her.
Allie’s hands had started to sweat when the preacher took the podium. He laid his Bible down but didn’t open it and smiled out at the congregation. “Today, we aren’t going to have a service, but we are going to have a wedding. In my opinion there isn’t a better way to celebrate Valentine’s Day than to unite two people who are very much in love in the bonds of holy matrimony.”
“I thought he was going to preach first,” Blake said.
“So did I.” Allie nodded.
The preacher’s wife hit a few keys on the piano and Lizzy stood up in her cute little off-white lace dress. She pulled a small bouquet of tiny little white flowers mixed with half a dozen red roses from a small cooler at her feet. The white ones reminded her of that tiny little snow flower that Blake had brought her that day and the roses—they reminded her of the roses that grew on the barbed wire fence between the Lucky Penny and Audrey’s Place in the summertime.
Folks looked around to see where Mitch was and from the expressions on their faces, Allie could tell that they thought Lizzy was the bride. But then Lizzy laid the bouquet on the altar and took her place on the stage.
Blake and Toby rose to their feet at the same time. Some folks might say they walked up the aisle, but from where Allie sat, there was no doubt that was a Texas cowboy strut or swagger. It definitely covered much more than a walk. She waited until they made it to the front to start down the aisle.