by Cathie Linz
Which reminded her, she sure hoped someone had fixed the hot water heater by the time she returned from Bliss. She was about ready to kill for a hot shower.
At the end of the drive, right before it joined the highway, she slowed as the truck rumbled over something embedded in the road—a set of rails laid side by side and several inches apart.
“Somebody should fix that,” she muttered.
“It’s a Texas gate to keep the cattle from crossing over from the ranch to the road,” Lucky loftily informed her. “Everybody knows that.”
Stung, Tracy retorted, “We don’t have cattle in Chicago, aside from the Bulls, and they play basketball.”
“Grandpa said it was a load of bull that you’d ever done any cooking before.” This charming comment came from Rusty.
“Your grandfather is a real character.” Tracy just wished he was more like Ben Cartwright and less like Rodney Dangerfield.
IT WAS A HALF-HOUR DRIVE to the town of Bliss. Town may have been an overambitious description of the place 159 people called home, as was proudly displayed on the wooden sign with the town’s name neatly printed on it. Bliss—the Little Town That Could. But Didn’t, someone had scrawled beneath it.
Bliss had one main street, appropriately named Main Street. There were no traffic lights at the two intersections, but there was a stop sign at both First Avenue and Second Avenue. The town apparently didn’t have a third avenue but just sort of petered out with a bunch of trailers set back from the road. Tracy was relieved to see that she wouldn’t have to parallel park, something she’d finally mastered in her compact Miata but had no desire to even attempt in this tank. Instead the pickup trucks were parked head-in and at an angle. She had no trouble finding an empty space right in front of the Roxy Movie Theater, a throwback to the days when a box of popcorn was a dime and names like Clark Gable and Cary Grant headlined the fancy marquee.
Walking down the sidewalk with the twins at her side she passed an insurance office, the post office, an American Legion, and two bars—one of which had a sign on the door proclaiming No Knives Allowed on Premises.
It had obviously been a while since Zane had gone appliance shopping, as the catalog outlet store had a sign up in its window saying that it had gone out of business. It was dated six months ago, and there was a For Rent sign beside it.
Tugging her pocket-size computerized memo minder out of her purse, she punched in the name of a nationwide appliance store that she’d done work for a few months back. Sure enough, their headquarters were in Colorado Springs. A moment later she had her cellular phone in hand and was speaking to her contact.
As luck would have it, there was a warehouse in Denver and two discounted appliances could be trucked in for the five-hundred-dollar budget she’d agreed to. It paid to have connections.
Feeling confident now that she’d taken care of that bit of business, she decided to explore the rest of Bliss—as in the other side of the street. So she crossed back to check out the few stores. The twins were utterly disgusted that she insisted that they hold her hand while crossing the street.
“We’re not babies,” Lucky declared.
“Humor me,” Tracy retorted, aware of curious looks from passersby—all three of them. In the end she barely hung onto the twins as they rushed her across the street.
The first establishment she stopped at, a dry-goods store with everything from cigarettes to china in the window, was closing as she arrived, the clerk hurriedly turning over the Welcome sign to its Sorry We’re Closed side just as she reached the door.
Glancing at her watch, Tracy noted that it was only a little after three. Rather early to be closing up. Moving on to the next store, she was surprised to find their door already locked. The third place, a combination grocery-and-hardware store, was open but claimed they were about to close once Tracy and the twins were inside. The clerk gave them the bum’s rush and Tracy found herself standing on the sidewalk facing yet another Closed sign.
She’d heard of places that didn’t welcome outsiders, but this was ridiculous. It was as if they saw her coming and locked their doors and pulled down their blinds. Why? Why would they be so unfriendly?
Tracy didn’t even realize she’d said the words aloud until Rusty answered them.
“Because we’re accident prone. We broke something the last time we went in there,” Rusty said with more pride than remorse.
“What did you break?” she asked.
“The front window.”
She gulped. These Best twins didn’t seem to do anything on a small scale. When they went after glass, they skipped the bottles and headed right for the bigticket items. “How did you manage to do that?”
Rusty shrugged. “I hit it just right with my slingshot. I used a walnut in it.”
“The window didn’t really break,” Lucky added. “It just got a big ol’ crack in it.”
“Pa wasn’t happy when we did that,” Rusty said in a hushed voice. “We’re not allowed to play with our slingshots in town anymore.”
“Or in the house,” Tracy added for good measure.
“Or in the house,” Lucky agreed before fixing her with a haughty stare. “But not because you said so. Because Pa did.”
“Your father is a wise man.”
“Well, actually I’m the wise one in the family,” a man wearing a badge stated as he strolled up to join them.
“Uncle Reno!”
The twins launched themselves at him. Apparently he was used to it because he scooped one child up in each arm and twirled around, giving Tracy a good view of yet another good-looking denim-clad cowboy. He was taller than Zane and younger. Where Zane projected a raw power, this man was more easygoing.
“And who’s this lovely lady with you?” he asked the twins.
“Our new housekeeper,” Lucky replied. “She’s not staying long.”
Taking matters into her own hands, Tracy introduced herself before tacking on, “And I am staying, for the summer at least.”
Reno’s eyes actually twinkled as he drawled, “You’re a courageous soul.”
Oh, yeah, this one was the charmer in the family.
“She can’t cook,” Lucky told Reno.
“Darlin’, she doesn’t have to cook,” Reno murmured with a meaningful glance.
Unlike Zane’s dark looks, Reno’s charm did nothing for her, which meant he was less of a threat to her peace of mind than his older brother was. When Reno shook her hand, there had been no humming in her fingers and her heart hadn’t even skipped a beat.
“Uncle Reno is the sheriff,” Rusty informed Tracy. “He can arrest you if you do something wrong. Like feed us broccoli.”
“Rusty here hates broccoli, but feeding him some isn’t a hanging offense.”
“It oughta be,” Rusty muttered.
Tracy couldn’t help it. She grinned. “We just came into town to get some groceries and take a look around, but it seems that the twins’ reputation precedes them.”
“Maybe you’ll be able to civilize them,” Reno suggested.
“That could happen. Let’s just say that I can be as stubborn as they are and leave it at that.”
“The stubbornness they got from Zane.”
“I had gathered that much. He told me that he’d had a hard time keeping a housekeeper.” A little late, she noted to herself, but he had finally told her.
“Yeah, the twins have a way of putting the fear of the devil into you while looking at you with the eyes of an angel. Look, they’re doing it right now even as Lucky just tied your shoelaces together.”
Tracy looked down to see that he was right. It appeared that she still had a thing or two to learn about dealing with the terrible twosome.
BY THE TIME Tracy found her way to the supermarket over in Kendall, where the twins weren’t as well-known and therefore banned from the store, it was already five. Kendall actually had two traffic lights, both of which stayed red for five minutes while Tracy fumed behind the wheel. She’d never ge
t back to the ranch in time to make dinner now.
“You’re speeding,” Lucky announced ten minutes later, jabbing an accusatory finger into Tracy’s right shoulder. “I’m gonna tell Pa.”
“You do and I’m making broccoli for dinner for the rest of the week.”
Okay, so she was lowering herself to their level, not a good negotiating technique, but she was tired and hungry. She hadn’t eaten her own cooking, which meant she hadn’t eaten anything, aside from a granola bar in her suitcase, all day.
The broccoli threat seemed to work, for the twins stayed quiet. But the momentary peace was soon broken by the sound of a police-car siren.
“I told you you were speeding.” Lucky gloated.
Suffice it to say that the policewoman from Kendall was not as charming as Reno had been, citing Tracy not only for speeding nine miles above the speed limit but also for driving with a defective taillight. The fact that it wasn’t her truck carried no weight with the policewoman at all.
“That was Sally,” Lucky said after the policewoman had departed. “She used to date Pa.”
“She gives him tickets, too.”
Tracy aimed on giving him more than a ticket. She aimed on giving him a piece of her mind for sending her out on a wild-goose chase without taillights. It didn’t matter that Buck was the one who told her to use the truck or that Zane hadn’t been keen to have her go into Bliss in the first place. All that mattered was that Zane was a man who made her hand, not to mention the rest of her body, hum at a time when she wanted nothing to do with the male species.
TRACY’S BAD MOOD was tempered by the delicious smell of barbecued ribs wafting from the ranch house. Her mouth watered. Her nose led her through the house and beyond the kitchen to the backyard, if a ranch had such a thing. There she found Buck, master of all he surveyed, a big white apron covering him from shoulders to knees as he leaned over a smoking hot grill. He handled the pair of large tongs the way Wyatt Earp handled a gun, twirling it in his right hand before stashing it back in place.
“Will that taste as good as it smells?” Tracy asked.
“Son of a buck, it tastes even better than it smells.” Buck added a chortle for good measure.
He was right. It did taste even better than it smelled. It was quite simply the best barbecued ribs she’d ever tasted. And she told him so.
“The secret is in the sauce,” he confided. “It’s an old family recipe.”
Tracy helped herself to another delicious rib. “I don’t see why you need a cook when you can make something this good yourself.”
“My father’s barbecue is great,” Zane acknowledged, “but it’s the only thing he cooks.”
Tracy knew all about being a one-trick pony. The only thing she cooked was Shrimp de Jonghe.
“You should bottle this and sell it,” she told Buck even as she licked the sauce from her fingertips.
“Pa, you’re staring at Tracy.” The accusation came from Lucky.
Turning her head, Tracy noted that Zane’s sexy craggy face was now a shade of red not unlike that of the barbecue sauce.
“Is it because she got a ticket?” Lucky had an eager look in her eyes. “I told you she got a ticket, right?”
“Only about a hundred times,” Zane muttered.
“So is that why you were staring at her?”
“I wasn’t staring at her. I was just surprised that she talked about Grandpa selling his barbecue sauce.”
“Why should that surprise you?” Tracy asked. “I was in advertising before I came out here and I worked with focus groups on a variety of products, including foods. Gourmet food items are very hot right now.”
“Grandpa’s sauce isn’t hot,” Rusty said. “You should taste Pa’s salsa. It’ll burn your mouth out.”
“By hot I meant that they are very popular,” Tracy explained.
“Our Pa is poplar,” Lucky said, for the first time sounding like a kid.
“Popular,” Zane automatically corrected her.
“A poplar is a tree, dummy.” Rusty elbowed his sister.
“I’m not a dummy!” She elbowed him right back.
“I think these ribs would taste wonderful with broccoli.” Another cheap shot at least but it ended the shoving match between the twins.
Returning her attention to Buck, she said, “I really think you should seriously consider bottling your barbecue sauce and selling it.”
“Selling it where?” Buck countered. “Here? We don’t get many visitors to these parts.”
“Selling it in gourmet food catalogs. There are a number of them that specialize in products from the West and Southwest. Many of them have Web sites on the Internet as well.”
“I’ll give it some thought,” Buck said, but looked doubtful.
“Maybe you could be more famous than Cockeyed Curly, Grandpa.” Rusty looked pleased by the idea.
“As long as you don’t choke on any steak.” This bit of advice came from Lucky. “Or ribs.”
“Or broccoli,” Rusty added with a dire look in Tracy’s direction.
She ignored it. “Where are the rest of the cowhands?” Although she hadn’t been formally introduced to any of them yet, she knew there had been half a dozen of them at lunch.
“They have Monday night off so they head into town,” Zane replied.
“Into Bliss?”
Zane laughed. It was the first time she’d heard his laugh and she liked it. His voice might shimmy down her spine like a hot toddy but his laugh had more of a ripple effect.
“No, not into Bliss. They head over to Red Deer or Kendall.”
“Tracy got a ticket outside of Kendall,” Lucky piped in yet again.
“We know!” The words were spoken in unison by Zane, Buck and even Rusty.
Lucky’s glare told them that she was not amused.
Join the club, kid, Tracy thought, still brooding over her reaction to Zane’s laugh.
Her mood was only slightly improved after doing another sinkful of dishes—the hot water heater had finally been repaired, thank heaven—while Zane put the twins to bed. Buck asked about her ideas for his barbecue sauce while she worked. When Zane came back downstairs he passed by the kitchen to grab a cup of coffee from the coffeemaker she’d been told to keep brewing at all times.
“Would it be okay if I took a shower now that the hot water heater is fixed?” she said, not wanting to do anything that would make it break down again.
He looked at her as if she’d just asked him if she could dance nude on the kitchen table.
She frowned. “Is there a problem?”
“No, no problem.” His voice was rough and a tad curt. “You can take a shower, just don’t spend all day in it or the hot water will run out.”
“I’ll be sure to save some hot water for you.” The thought of him in the shower—minus the jeans, shirt and boots, with droplets of water rolling down his bare body—was enough to make her eyes widen. And to make her wonder if that’s why he’d looked at her so strangely a moment ago. Because he’d been imagining the same thing about her?
Or maybe he was just aggravated by her lack of ability in the housekeeping department. It was getting pretty bad when she couldn’t tell whether a man’s look was aggravated or aroused. She’d gotten out of practice while she’d been engaged to Dennis. He’d chased her from the first moment he’d met her at a professional function. He’d swept her off her feet. It had been intoxicating. She’d found him compatible and their lifestyles and interests meshed, so she thought he must be the man for her.
She’d only been interested in him. Sappy though it sounded, she hadn’t even noticed other men.
Which was one of the reasons why her response to Zane worried her a bit. Well, maybe it wasn’t so much a response as an awareness. Yes, she liked that term. It didn’t sound as serious. Awareness was okay. After all, she was a free woman now. It was perfectly normal for her to appreciate a good-looking man.
After her quick shower she retired to her room to
use her cell phone to call her aunt.
“I’m so glad to hear from you!” Aunt Maeve had a booming voice. Wincing, Tracy moved the phone a little further from her ear. “Did you get to the ranch safely? Were Herbert’s directions helpful?”
Herbert was Aunt Maeve’s third husband. Growing up, Tracy had been convinced that the movie Mame was based on her Aunt Maeve. When her own parents had died right after she’d graduated from high school, Aunt Maeve had stepped in—or swept in and taken over, to be more accurate. Aunt Maeve was like a bird of paradise, all bright colors and showy moves. She had a heart of gold and the memory of a sieve. “You didn’t give me Herbert’s directions.”
“Surely I did.”
“No, you gave me your directions.”
“How could you tell the difference?” Maeve demanded.
“Because Herbert’s directions would have been more specific than ‘you take the little road after the big road.’”
“Did you get lost?”
“I found it in the end,” Tracy replied, stretching out on the bed after pulling back the covers to make sure there was no mouse hidden underneath the sheets.
“Well, then, my directions weren’t so bad after all. And how are you settling in?”
“Okay, I guess.” She gingerly explored the shadowy foot of the bed with her toes, still not one hundred percent confident she was alone. “It wasn’t exactly what I expected.”
“Why is that?”
Tracy curled up and bent over to take a peek under the bed before replying to her aunt’s question. “Because you told me that Zane was a middle-aged widower with two angelic children.”
“And?”
“And I come here to find out that the twins are hellions and Zane is...”
“Yes?” Maeve’s voice perked up.
“No more middle-aged than I am. Oh sure he may be a few years older, but not by many.”
“Funny, one would expect that having twin hellions would age a person,” Maeve noted dryly.
“It hasn’t aged him. He’s got this cowboy swagger... Anyway, I was expecting J.R.’s dad from Dallas and instead he’s...”