“What time? Can I bring the beer?” he asked.
“Twelve thirty or after and yes on the beer. I can’t sell it but I could sure drink one with dinner. Looks like our bedroom celebration will have to wait until the first of the week. There’s no way I can get it finished by Saturday,” she said.
“Bedroom celebration, darlin’?” he asked.
“We’re going out to celebrate finishing your bedroom. Did you forget? I thought we’d ask Deke to join us so he won’t feel left out,” she said quickly.
“No, I hadn’t forgotten. I was teasing you and darlin’ I don’t do threesomes,” he said. “I’ll see you at dinner. I’ll be the one with three beers and a lean and hungry look on my face.”
In the middle of the morning he got a text message from Toby, saying that he was leaving Muenster as soon as he could get away that evening and driving up to the Lucky Penny for the weekend.
He couldn’t wait for Toby to arrive at the ranch so he could see the progress Blake had made. But most of all he wanted to introduce him to his Allie.
“My Allie,” he muttered. “I only wish she were mine.”
Allie was so busy making lunches from eleven thirty until five minutes before the final bell rang down at the school that she didn’t have time to look up. When the store finally cleared she sat down at a table and propped her legs up on an empty chair.
She wished she was painting walls at Blake’s place rather than running the store, but family helped family, even when they didn’t like it. Too bad Lizzy or her mother didn’t know a hammer from a dishrag so they could return the favor when she needed help.
“Hey,” Deke called out as he and Blake pushed their way into the store. “Looks like we timed it about right. There’s some big black clouds gathering up down in the southwest and I got a text from a friend in Throckmorton who says we’ve got freezing rain on the way by midnight, so we’re in for a blast. Cold wind is coming down from the north and rain from the south. Won’t be no more workin’ outside today.”
Allie’s heart kicked in an extra beat when she saw Blake, and her pulse went from low to high gear in less than five seconds. It was the first time she’d seen him since that horrible night. He stopped a few feet from her and she searched his expression, hoping that they were truly all right and the whole scene wouldn’t be awkward between them.
“Crazy how the weather affects what we do, isn’t it? Take off your coats and hang them on the rack in the back. Dinner is on the stove. Help yourselves.” Her voice sounded normal despite the way her heart was flopping around like a fish out of water inside her chest. She started to get up but Blake shook his head.
“Keep your seat. I’ll bring you a plate. One or two tacos?” He smiled and erased all doubts from her mind.
She held up four fingers. “No beans and extra dirty rice, but I’ll make my own plate and we’ll take them to the back room where it’s a little more private.”
“She’s bored.” Deke laughed. “When she’s bored she eats and she gets cranky and picks fights. When she’s nervous she talks too much. She’s not made to run a store. Hey, neither Blake nor I can’t work outside anymore with this weather comin’ on so how be I run the store for you and you go on home with Blake and do some paintin’. It might keep you from goin’ plumb batshit crazy.”
Allie jogged over to Deke, put her arms around his neck, and hugged him like a brother. “I love you, love you, love you! You are my very best friend and I owe you one.”
“I guess I could tear out some hallway ceiling while you paint.” Blake removed three beers from the pockets of his work coat and set them on the table. A twinge of jealousy reared its ugly head when she told Deke that she loved him and said that he was her best friend. Blake wanted that spot even if he wasn’t going to admit it out loud.
“That sounds wonderful. Now let’s eat so we can get out of here and go to work,” she said.
Blake nodded toward the doughnuts. “Can we have them for dessert?”
“No!” Deke called out from the back of the store. “You’ll want ice cream to chase the picante sauce that we’re going to put on these tacos. Katy makes it from her own special recipe and believe me, you will want ice cream. We’ll each pick a pint of our favorite flavor from the freezer.”
Blake removed his coat and hung it on the back of a chair and headed for the back room with Allie right behind him. In a few minutes she and Blake were sitting on one side of the table with Deke at the end. Blake’s leg was jammed tightly against hers and electricity, that had nothing to do with the thunder and lightning outside, rattled through her body jump-starting her pulse into racing again just when it had slowed down to normal.
“Damn fine tacos,” Deke said between bites. “Herman and his boys are practically carrying off ever’ bit of the mesquite that Blake is clearing out. I’ve made a hell of a good livin’ sellin’ my wood to him this week, but this damn weather will slow us down for the rest of the week for sure. Freezing rain on top of snow makes a big mess.”
Blake finished his first taco and sipped his beer. “Once things thaw out, it’s going to be easy to turn the land the way they’re cleaning it up. I might even have eighty acres in alfalfa when Toby brings in the first round of cattle. We can put them on forty to graze and make hay from the rest. Then come fall when Jud gets here, we’ll have more land ready. It’s going better than I thought it might. These are good tacos. What’s your secret, Allie?”
Allie picked up her second one and turned to look at Blake. “Not my secret but Mama’s. She makes her own seasonings for the meat, but there’s a possibility that she won’t be cooking much longer here in the store.”
Deke frowned, drawing his forehead down to turn his hazel eyes into slits. “I don’t want to hear that. What are we going to do for a place to have coffee or to grab food at noon if Blake ain’t cookin’?”
“Nadine is opening up the old café. Hopefully by the end of the month. It all happened really quick. She’s leased it from Mama and if things go well after the first year, she’s going to buy the building,” Allie said. “And she’s trying to talk Mary Jo into putting in a barber and beauty shop across the street.”
Deke held up a finger. “And Sharlene? Is she putting in a brothel? That’s what we need most.”
Allie slapped him on the arm. “No, but Nadine is talking to her about a day care center in the old clothing store. It’s got a lot of room and it wouldn’t take much to convert it and Sharlene is real good with kids. And besides who needs a brothel when it appears that menfolk can get all of that around here that they want for free.”
“Alora Raine!” Deke pretended to be shocked.
Blake glanced out the window. “Wouldn’t it be something if all these empty buildings were filled with businesses?”
Deke chuckled. “You best hope for one miracle at a time. Turning the luck of the Lucky Penny is enough for you to worry about right now.”
Chapter Seventeen
Herman waved from the window of his trailer loaded high with mesquite wood when Allie and Blake passed him on the way to the ranch. Travis Tritt was singing “Love of a Woman” on the classic country radio station and Blake kept time with his thumbs on the steering wheel.
Allie tapped her foot to the beat and was so wrapped up in her relief to get away from the store that she didn’t realize they were at the Lucky Penny until Blake parked the truck and jogged around the front end to open the door for her.
She stepped out in four inches of snow that wasn’t so pretty anymore with tire tracks zigzagging everywhere across it. Shooter bounded off the porch, his tail wagging as if it was a lovely spring day. A rabbit peeked out from behind a fence post and the dog went into instant point, quivering only slightly until the bunny bounded and the race was on.
“I vote that we build a snowman before we go inside to work,” Blake said. “I don’t know about you but the last time I built a snowman I was still a kid.”
She pulled her gloves from her coat p
ocket. “We’ve had snow and ice and bad weather in this part of the state but the last time my sisters and I built a snowman was the year before I graduated high school. Fiona was still in junior high and I really thought I was too old to play in the snow.”
“And today,” Blake asked.
“You got a carrot for his nose?” She grinned.
“I sure do. Let’s build him in the backyard. That way I can see him from the kitchen windows,” Blake said.
The wet snow packed together beautifully. Soon she had a start the size of a basketball and she started rolling it on the ground. When it was big enough for a base she looked over her shoulder to see that Blake had already positioned the bottom of the snowman in the middle of the yard. From the size of what he’d made, her donation would be the midsection.
Wiggling her shoulders to get the kinks out, she looked for him but he was nowhere. She hadn’t heard the back door open or close so he wasn’t in the house, but then she’d been thinking about burning bridges again. Suddenly two strong arms wrapped around her waist from behind. Shooter came out of nowhere and should’ve stopped quicker because when he threw his paws up on her chest, the momentum took all three of them to the ground.
Shooter popped up on his feet immediately, sent snow flying in an instant mini blizzard when he shook from head to toe, and then bounded off to chase after something else.
When the snow settled, Allie was on her side, pressed against Blake’s long, muscular body, and his arms were tight around her. She reached up and brushed flakes from his thick eyelashes. The vibes between them were so strong that she wished she had fallen into bed with him instead of into a snowdrift up next to the house.
If that had happened would it satisfy the lust? She needed a little taste of what he had to offer to prove that all men were alike when they were stripped down, then she would be over this crazy schoolgirl infatuation that kept making her go all ga-ga when he was close. But Allie Logan had no idea how to initiate a booty call.
Blake pulled her even closer. “It makes for a cold bed but I like the way you fit into my arms.”
“Me, too,” she whispered. “But right now I feel a freezing mist starting to fall. If we’re going to finish this old boy so he can get a coating of ice over him tonight, we’d best get on with it. You’ve got the bottom layer ready. I’ve made the middle. All we have to do is put them together and make him a head. Then it won’t take long to put a hat and scarf on him and give him a face. And I’m talking too much again.”
“Nervous?” He pulled her up with him when he sat up.
“Yes.”
He tipped up her chin with his fist and kissed her. The heat when their lips met came close to melting all the snow in the whole state. His tongue teased its way into her mouth, creating bright sparkly things that floated around them in multi-colors like a fireworks display in July.
When he broke the kiss, she leaned against his shoulder, every nerve ending standing on edge, every hormone begging for more. She didn’t care what common sense said, she wanted him to kiss her again.
“You don’t ever have to be nervous around me, Allie,” he whispered.
Then instantly he was on his feet with his hand extended toward her. She put her glove in his and wasn’t the least bit amazed at the effect even that much of a touch had on her.
“Let’s get this snowman done so we can get inside before this misty freezing rain gets worse,” he said.
The snowman was six feet tall and quite the cowboy with his red plaid scarf and old straw hat. He had a carrot for a nose and blackened wood chips for eyes and mouth, and mesquite limbs for arms. And a coating of freezing rain was already putting a shine on him when Allie and Blake hurried into the warm house.
The second the door shut behind Blake, he wrapped his arms around her and hugged her tightly to his chest. “I miss you so much when you aren’t here every day,” he whispered into her hair.
“Me, too,” she said softly.
“I want more than friendship, Allie.” His voice was hoarse with emotion.
“How much more?” She tilted her head back to see his face. His dark lashes fluttered and his mouth opened slightly. She tiptoed and moistened her dry lips with the tip of her tongue. His lips found hers in a hard, demanding kiss that made her knees go weak and all she could do was pant. Her arms snaked up around his neck and she arched her body against his so tightly that air couldn’t find a way to get between them.
His eyes were closed as the kisses grew even hotter. His hands found her cheeks and gently held her face still as he made love to her mouth.
“Oh, my God!” she panted when he finally scooped her up in his arms. “I feel like my insides are a boiling pot of heat and desire.”
His chuckle was as hoarse as if he was a lifetime smoker. “Is that a pickup line, Allie?”
“It’s a fact. Where are you taking me?” she asked. “Please say it’s to your bed because Shooter is on the sofa.”
“Say no now if you are going to,” he whispered.
“I couldn’t say no even if I wanted to,” she said softly.
Instead of turning into the room where his king-size mattress took up most of the floor he carried her into the bathroom and set her on the floor. “You are simply beautiful, Allie, and you deserve so much more than a slam-bam-thank-you-ma’am. We’ve got all afternoon so I want to make this last. First a nice warm bath together.”
“Are you serious?” she asked.
He bent and captured her lips again. And this time it was a whole new experience, as if they’d never shared kisses before. Would it always be this hot and heavy or would it burn itself out after the first sex session?
“Are you telling me you are a bath virgin?” he asked.
“My name is Alora Raine Logan, and I’m a bath virgin. But I’m willing to give it up today, January fifteenth. Oh! Fifteen is my lucky number. This is good.”
He set her down and removed her coat. “I’ll be gentle.”
She pushed the sleeves of his jacket down and threw it in the corner with her coat. “I might not be.”
He pulled her to his chest again. Unfastening her shirt, one button at a time, he lingered over the exposed skin, kissing and tasting every inch as it was revealed. “You are so beautiful.” He unfastened her jeans, slid them down along with her cotton underpants, and tossed them into the clothing pile.
She didn’t argue because anything resembling words had suddenly left her brain. Her knees were weak when her bra flew through the air and landed near her jeans. He picked her up and carried her a few feet to an old ladder-back chair and sat down with her straddling his lap.
“Bath?” she gasped.
“Not yet. I need to touch you and feel all this glorious skin.” His hands were everywhere, burning as they went and heating up every fiber of her being. She had no idea that foreplay could be this much fun.
“If it’s going to be a bath for two, then I’ll have to return the favor.” She tugged his flannel shirt free from his jeans. Starting at the top, she popped all the snaps in one fell swoop and pushed it off his shoulders. When it joined the pile of clothing in the corner, she ran her fingertips through the soft dark hair on his chest, slowing down when she reached his taut nipples.
“You drive me crazy, Allie. I’ve wanted to touch you since the first time I laid eyes on you,” he said.
“I thought I wasn’t your type,” she said.
“So did I but I was wrong.”
She arched against him and groaned loudly. “I’m not so sure I can wait for a bath.”
“Anything worth doing is worth doing right.”
He stood her up on the bathroom floor and took her by the hand, led her to the tub, and turned on the water. “Put your hand down here and tell me when it’s warm enough.”
“Are you talking about water or something else?” She bent forward and he strung kisses from her neck, down her back, across her hips, and to her knees.
“And you called me wild?” He
chuckled.
She stuck her hand under the running water. “You probably need to put ice in it.”
“Oh, no, darlin’. I want you to be every bit as hot as you’ve made me. You are so beautiful that it flat out takes my breath away.”
She didn’t care if he’d used the same lines on thousands of women or if he’d gotten a bum rap when it came to his reputation and wasn’t as wild as everyone said. She wanted to finish what they’d started.
“Do I really make you hot?” she asked.
He shucked out of his boots, socks, jeans, and underwear, and stood before her every bit as naked as she was. She gasped and moved closer to him, her hand reaching out to encircle an erection that was so ready it pulsated. “That’s hotter than the water. It might make it boil when it gets into the bath.”
“Oh, darlin’, we might need that ice after all.” He scooped her up and put her in the tub.
He crawled into the ancient old claw-foot tub with a sloped back, with her facing him, their legs touching.
“Don’t ever get rid of this tub,” she said.
“Don’t intend to.” He grinned.
She moved her foot slightly and found him still hard as steel, and using her foot to steady things, she softly massaged his erection with the toes of her other foot.
“Sweet Jesus, you’re not a bathtub virgin at all,” he said.
“Yes, I am. It must be some of the DNA from my Audrey’s Place ancestors rising to the top, and I have to admit I like it,” she whispered.
He picked up the sweet-smelling soap, lathered his hands, and then began giving her a bath with his bare hands as the water continued to fill the tub. She’d never known such raw nerve endings as when his slick, soapy hands caressed her breasts, her toes, and her inner thighs.
Wild Cowboy Ways Page 18