“What would you do if this was the bedroom you’d be sleeping in the rest of your life?” he asked.
Lord, have mercy! That question put a visual in her mind that practically made her pant. “Something neutral, like a soft ivory or maybe a really light tan with white trim and doors. It would lighten up the place. Whoever painted it this god-awful shade of pink should be shot. It’s evident that the room has always been the master bedroom. No one paints a room where a man is going to sleep this color.” No wonder she was talking so fast and furious.
Blake chuckled. “So you aren’t into pink walls and lacy curtains?”
She thought carefully before she answered so she wouldn’t go off on another tangent. “You should be able to tell that by looking at me. Pink and lace were my youngest sister’s things. I was always the girl who’d rather be running around behind Daddy and playing in the sawdust.”
Something about that king-size bed with the tangled gold sheets set her hormones into overdrive. Thank God she had a notepad because she couldn’t remember a single, solitary number she’d written down on it. She did recall something about sand-colored paint with white woodwork but to be on the safe side, she probably needed to note that, too.
What was wrong with her? Hell, she couldn’t even hang on to Riley and he wasn’t a tenth as sexy as Blake. Deke appeared in the doorway and pointed toward the ceiling.
“Every joint has been affected by the leaks. Hall looks to be four feet wide and twenty feet long, so you’ll need five sheets for the hall. Write that down. Living room is a twenty-foot square so figure that many sheets. I ran back by to say we can’t go to Frankie’s tonight. I promised my cousin and his wife I’d go to dinner with them.”
She wrote down the numbers. “Thanks, Deke.”
“Y’all decided what to do with the floors?” Deke asked.
Blake shrugged and looked at Allie. “What do you suggest we do with this ratty old carpet?”
Deke went to a corner and pulled up a corner. “Looks like oak hardwood under it. I’d pull the shit up and throw it out. Wood floors are easier to clean. I pulled it all out of my house a couple of years ago and ain’t regretted it one time.”
“Want me to rip it all up after I get through painting? If you do, then I won’t have to cover the flooring to keep from getting paint on it,” Allie said.
“That sounds good,” Blake said. “How long do you think the whole job will take?”
“About a week if you will help me get the drywall up on the ceiling. Trim work takes longer because it’s tedious, and the doors will have to be sanded. But I’d say a week for each room.”
“So roughly a month unless you have to take a day now and then to help take care of Miz Irene?” he asked.
“That’s right.” She bit her tongue to keep from spitting out a monologue about woodwork, floors, carpet, and anything else to keep her mind off those sheets.
“Either of y’all want a cup of hot chocolate or coffee to warm your bones before you go back out in the cold?” Blake asked.
“Not me,” Deke said. “I’m outta here. Got wood to get cut and ready to sell while the sun shines. Can’t do much in that area if it’s bad weather next week.”
His boots didn’t make a noise until he hit the kitchen floor, and then she heard the back door slam again. She tucked the notepad and tape back in her pocket. “I’ll pass. I don’t want to get caught in a rain storm with drywall on the trailer.”
He raised his arms over his head and stretched, working the kinks out of his back by bending to each side. Allie’s eyes were glued to that broad chest and the way his biceps stretched the arms of the T-shirt. How long would it take her to strip that thing up over his head? How would it feel to bury her face on his chest while afterglow settled around them?
Afterglow is not real! You know that, Allie Logan. It’s something that romance authors made up to make all women think there is something wonderful out there. Kind of like sex that lasts all night and isn’t over in ten minutes with the man snoring on his side of the bed.
“What about fish?” he asked.
“What are you talking about?” Had she been so lost in her argument with herself or in the pictures she’d conjured up in her mind of him half-naked that she missed something about going fishing?
“You said you don’t like squirrel. Do you eat fish?” he asked.
She nodded. “Any kind long as it’s cooked. I’m like Granny when it comes to sushi.”
“And that is?” He smiled.
She stood up and took a couple of steps toward the door. “Raw fish is called bait in our world.”
Blake followed her. “Alora Raine? Where’d you get that name?”
“Is this twenty questions or something?” she asked.
He leaned a shoulder against the wall beside the coatrack. “It could be. I was trying to get you to stay longer.”
“We’ll have to play that game another time. I’ll see you later. App weather forecast on my phone says no bad weather until tomorrow, so my stuff will be all right on the trailer until after church. I’ll cover it with a tarp.” There she went talking too much again.
Her arm brushed against his when she reached around him and picked her coat off the rack. The scent of his cologne mixed with a manly soap filled her nostrils every time she inhaled.
“Do you miss your family?” she asked as she slipped her arms into her coat and buttoned it up the front. One more layer of protection, not against him but herself.
“More than I thought I would. We went to my grandparents’ house every Sunday for dinner after church.” He straightened her collar. “Cousins fought. Men sat on the porch with a beer and talked crops and cattle. Women gathered in the kitchen to talk about girl things. I wasn’t interested in the kitchen, but I learned to love ranchin’ out there listenin’ to those old men talk about cows and hay and spring plantin’.”
The warmth of his fingertips on her neck sent electricity bouncing all around her. Did he feel it, too, or was it just her?
“But you did learn to cook,” she said.
Blake stepped back. “Only because I had to. Most of my expertise starts with a big stew pot. I can’t fry chicken worth a damn and it’s my favorite food. Deke says you hate to cook. Was he teasing?”
She slowly shook her head. “He was telling the truth. I hate to cook but that doesn’t mean I can’t cook. I can fry chicken that will melt in your mouth.”
“Biscuits?” His eyes twinkled.
She nodded.
“Gravy? The good stuff with no lumps?” A grin tickled his sexier-than-the-devil mouth.
Another nod.
“Will you marry me?” he asked bluntly.
Had he seriously just proposed? “I might fry chicken for you to celebrate when we finish this house, but I’m never getting married again.”
“I don’t take rejection well.” He laid a fist over his heart and dropped his head in a fake pout.
Allie took another step toward the door. “Sorry about that, cowboy. You’ll have to get over it.”
He sighed. “Will you attend my funeral on Sunday? I promised my brother, Toby, if I ever found a woman who could fry chicken like my mama, I would ask her to marry me. It’s going to kill me to tell him that the woman of my dreams has turned me down.”
“You’re full of horse shit.” She laughed.
Allie deliberately stayed out late that evening, hoping to avoid Mitch and Grady. The Friday-night date with her sister and the two guys had been postponed at the last minute until tonight, so she didn’t want to go home until she absolutely had to.
Instead, she decided a little retail therapy at the mall might be in order until she was sure they’d be out of the house. She meandered through three stores and bought a new pair of skinny jeans, a beautiful dark green sweater dress, and two shirts. Then she grabbed dinner on her own, wishing the whole time that Deke and Blake were sitting with her at the table.
It was a little after eight when she mad
e it to Dry Creek and saw Mitch’s truck right there in the driveway. Damn! She slapped the steering wheel but the truck did not disappear.
She tiptoed across the porch and eased the front door open, then closed it behind her so carefully that it didn’t make a bit of noise. She didn’t realize she was holding her breath until she reached the landing and it came out in a loud whoosh. Quickly peeking over the banister to make sure they hadn’t heard her, she sucked in another lung full of air and hurried into her room. Without turning on the light, she slid down the backside of the door and wrapped her arms around her knees.
“Alora, let me in.” A soft whisper on the other side of the door startled her. She hopped up and opened the door a crack to find Irene in her red flannel pajamas.
Her grandmother held up a package of chocolate chip cookies in one hand and a soda pop in the other. “I snuck in the kitchen and up the stairs and they didn’t hear me.”
“Who’s down there?” Allie pulled her grandmother inside and flipped the light switch.
Irene crawled up in the middle of the bed and ripped open the cookie package. “Katy and Lizzy and those two men. Lizzy is dumber than a box of rocks.”
Allie didn’t care if her granny left her bed in a mess of crumbs or even if she spilled the can of soda pop. To have Irene there in her right mind might take her mind off Blake Dawson and that despicable Grady at the same time.
“I loved your grandpa. I really did,” Irene said. “But there was a time…”
Allie waited for her granny to fall back into another time.
She finished a cookie and reached for another one. “I forget things, Allie, but I want you to know something while my mind isn’t all jumbled. Your grandpa started it when he had that affair with that woman from Throckmorton. But we got past it and fell in love all over again. We had four wonderful years before he died.”
Allie crawled up on the bed with her grandmother. “It’s okay, Granny. It’s in the past and Grandpa loved you.”
“I know that and I loved him. I never did love Walter like I did him. I was getting even with him.” She handed Allie a cookie. “But we need to talk about Lizzy. She is about to get into a mess. I never have thought that boy loves her like he should. She’s marryin’ just to be married. Leastways that’s what I think, which ain’t worth much these days the way my head is working. I’m afraid she will regret it and I can’t tell her anything so you’re going to have to stop that wedding. You owe me this much because you wouldn’t listen to me when it came to Riley. He was a sorry bastard.”
“I know, Granny.” Allie nibbled on the cookie as she talked. “You were right. Riley thought he could change me and turn me into a little wife who stayed home and had dozens of babies for him. When I didn’t get pregnant in those almost three years we were married he blamed it on the work I do.”
“Stupid bastard. And then he left you. It wasn’t your fault you didn’t have them babies. It was probably his the way he poked his thing into anyone who’d lift their skirt tail for him. Most likely rotted any sperm he had up in there. Here have a drink of this soda pop and get the taste of his name out of your mouth.” Irene passed the soda over to her.
Allie took a sip and handed it back. “Thank you, Granny.”
“I wanted to kill him but I couldn’t figure out a way to do it and not get caught and you needed me then. But now I’m a burden so I want you to kill that sumbitch that Lizzy is about to marry.” Irene dropped cookie crumbs on the bedspread. “I’ll say I did it and they might put me away but it’s okay. I don’t want another of my precious babies to hurt like you did.”
Allie picked up the crumbs and tossed them in the trash can beside her bed. “You are not a burden, Granny. We all love you.”
Irene clamped her bony hand over Allie’s knee. “If you love me and your sister, then put a stop to her marryin’ that man. Promise me you won’t stop short of killin’ him.”
“I’ll do my best, Granny,” Allie said.
Irene’s mouth set in a firm line. “Okay, you’ve given me your word. I’ll be packed and ready to go to the nut house when you get it done. Just tell me how you do it so I don’t flub up the story. I’m going back to my room now and we’ll talk later.”
She slid off the bed and tiptoed to the door, peeked out and gave Allie the thumbs-up sign before she left. Allie threw herself back on the pillows and stared at the ceiling. Granny was worried about Lizzy but the true message from her ten minutes of being lucid seemed to be that Allie needed to put the past behind her…after she killed Mitch, of course.
Chapter Ten
Several people turned around in the church pews that Sunday morning and stared blatantly; some whipped back to whisper behind their hands to the person next to them. Without even turning around, Allie knew exactly who had just walked in. The extra beat in her heart and the way her pulse raced told her it was Blake.
Grady scooted close to her and put his arm around her, his hand resting on her shoulder. Allie gritted her teeth and tried to shrug his arm away, but he was a persistent son of a bitch. When the music director said that the congregation would sing, “Abide with Me,” he held the hymnbook and pulled her even closer.
She didn’t even try to sing. She didn’t want God to abide with her that morning. She wanted him to strike Grady graveyard dead in the pew where he sat or maybe send a bolt of lightning through the roof to turn him into nothing but ashes. She didn’t even mind getting a little bit of scorch on her new pretty sweater dress if God would grant her the desires of her heart.
Her granny sang a different song, loud and clear in her soprano voice. The folks in the church had long accepted that Irene Miller lived in many worlds each day and didn’t pay a bit of attention to her that morning as she sang, “I’ll Fly Away,” while the rest of the congregation sang, “Abide with Me.”
“You look really gorgeous this morning,” Grady whispered when the song ended.
His breath was warm and it was supposed to be seductive, but Allie wanted to brush it away like a fly that had lit on her earlobe after visiting a fresh cow pile. If she inhaled deeply, she could even smell the cow shit.
“I’m looking forward to dinner,” Grady said.
“Shhhh,” Granny said. “No talkin’ in church.”
The preacher opened his Bible, cleared his throat, and said, “Good morning. We have a newcomer back there on the back row. Welcome to Dry Creek, Blake Dawson. We all know that you’ve bought the Lucky Penny and we welcome you to our church. Now, this morning my sermon is from the verses that say that God will not lay more upon a person than they can endure and he will always provide a way of escape.”
Irene tapped Allie on the knee and said in a very loud whisper, “I’ve got to go to the bathroom and I don’t know where it is.” She frantically looked around everywhere, from the ceiling to the windows.
Allie laced her fingers in her grandmother’s and they stood up together. The preacher read verses straight from the Bible to support his opening statement as the two ladies, one in fear of wetting herself and the other giving thanks that God had provided an escape, made their way to the back of the church.
The ladies’ room was located off the nursery and two elderly ladies looked up from worn old rockers where they each held a baby in their arms.
“Good morning, Dorothy and Janet. Looks like you’ve got your hands full today,” Allie said quickly so that her grandmother would know who the ladies were.
“We love babies. Hello, Irene. It’s good to see you again,” Dorothy said.
“I don’t know you so how can you say that you ever saw me in the first place?” She leaned toward Allie and whispered in her ear, “You’ll wait for me, right?”
“I’ll be right here, Granny. I’m not going anywhere.”
Irene closed the door behind her and Allie slumped down in a third rocking chair.
“She’s not going to get any better, is she?” Dorothy said.
Allie shook her head. “The doctors say tha
t this puzzle stage will get worse until she finally settles into one phase of her life. Probably when she was the happiest and that she might not know us most of the time, especially if she stops when she was a young girl and we weren’t even in her life then. We keep hoping one of the medications they are trying will work.”
“I’m so sorry,” Janet said. “We used to love having her help us here in the nursery and we were all good friends. The three of us and Hilda, but Hilda’s been gone now for years. Died with cancer back when she wasn’t much more than forty.”
Evidently Irene overheard the name Hilda, because when she came out of the bathroom with her skirt tail tucked up in the back of her white granny panties, the first words out of her mouth were, “Hilda, something ain’t right with my clothes. Help me, please.”
Allie didn’t mind being Hilda if she didn’t have to sit beside Grady anymore that day. “You want to stay in here or go back out into the church?” She stood up and put her grandmother to rights. “The preacher has another twenty minutes at the least before he winds down.”
“Are we having fried chicken? Is that mean man coming to dinner?” Irene asked.
“What mean man?” Allie asked.
She popped one hand on her hip. “You know who I’m talking about. I’m not sitting on the same pew with him. I hate him.”
“Then you do want to stay in here? And Mama put a pot roast in the oven for dinner so we aren’t having fried chicken.” Allie sat back down in the rocking chair. The church was small with two sets of pews, a center aisle, and just enough room on the sides for folks to get out of church single file. She didn’t want to follow Granny but then she didn’t want to lead the way, either, because there was no telling what she’d do if Allie didn’t keep a hand on her arm.
She shook her head. “I’m not a baby. We’re both ten years old and we don’t belong in the nursery anymore. I’m going to listen to the preacher but I’m not sitting on that pew.” She marched out of the nursery like a little girl in a royal snit.
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