No such luck.
The aroma of coffee, frying bacon, and sausage floated down the hallway and with it came feminine voices. Toby was making his famous morning-after breakfast for the ladies. Blake stopped by his room long enough to pull an oatmeal-colored thermal shirt over his head and put on a pair of thick socks. He was hungry and Toby made a mean skillet of sausage gravy, and his biscuits were every bit as light as his granny’s.
“Where’s Deke?” he asked as he headed for the coffeepot.
Laney pressed her body against his side. “Too weak to crawl out of bed. We could take our breakfast to your bedroom.”
“I’m sorry I forgot y’all’s name.” Blake yawned.
Laney laid a hand over her heart and then wiped at an imaginary tear. “Well, if that ain’t a slap right in the face.”
The other one patted him on the shoulder. “I’m Lisa, darlin’, and this one who brought Deke to his knees last night is my sister, Laney. But now that Deke’s out of commission for a while…” She raised an eyebrow suggestively.
“Thanks, but no thanks. I’m only here for the morning-after food,” he answered.
“I told you.” Toby grinned. “He’s got bit by the love bug.”
“I betcha a little lust bug could knock that shit out of your head, darlin’.” Laney ran a hand down his back and squeezed his butt cheek firmly. “Well, I do believe this cowboy is going commando this morning. I don’t feel anything but jeans and good tight ass.”
Blake stepped away from her, filled a cup with steaming hot coffee, and sat down at the end of the table. “Like I said, no thanks, Miz Laney.”
“Well, I know when I’m defeated but if you ever change your mind, my number is on that old calendar over there.”
A loud clap of thunder awoke Allie with a start. She grabbed a pillow and crammed it over her head, but the next lightning flash only heralded a rolling thunder that sounded as if it was dumping a load of potatoes on top of Audrey’s Place. Her phone rang right at the end of the noise. She pushed back the covers and threw the pillow in the direction of the rocking chair.
“Why in the hell are you calling me?” Allie growled into the phone.
“Good morning, sunshine.” Lizzy laughed. “Breakfast is ready and I don’t want to eat alone and I didn’t want to come back upstairs. Mama and Granny have already left for the store. Crawl out and come on down here. I made crunchy French toast.”
Allie’s stomach growled. “I’m on the way.”
The sun peeked from behind a bank of dark, fast-moving clouds, sending a few rays through the glass in the front door. Allie stopped long enough to stretch and feel the warmth on the foyer floor against her bare feet.
Lizzy stuck her head out of the kitchen. “Your toast is getting cold while you play in the sun. Weatherman says we’ve got more bad weather on the way later this afternoon. Be glad you are at least working inside over there at that abominable place.”
So much for hoping that Lizzy was ready to bury the hatchet. She had an agenda up her sleeve, and that was the reason she’d made Allie’s favorite food. Suddenly, her favorite breakfast didn’t sound so good after all.
Lizzy did give her time to sit down and at least get the first bite in her mouth before she pulled out a chair across the table from her, sucked up enough air to deliver a Sunday-morning sermon, and started talking. “I knew you weren’t sick. You flat out lied to get out of spending time with Grady. And all for nothing because I’ve already heard the gossip this morning, and your little Lucky Penny bubble is about to bust wide open.”
“What in the devil are you talking about?” Allie asked.
“Blake’s brother arrived last night and the two of them and Deke went bar hopping up near Wichita Falls. Deke brought a tall blond hussy home with him. I did have such hopes for him turning his life around when he started coming to church pretty regular, but now that the infamous wild Dawson has become his new best friend, I swear, he’s on a joy ride straight to hell,” Lizzy said.
“Are we being judgmental this morning?” Allie was sure glad the gossips hadn’t been hiding outside the window when she and Blake had been tangled up in his sheets.
“I’m stating pure facts and I’m tellin’ you that…”
“What if I told you I spent yesterday afternoon having hot pig sex with Blake Dawson?” Allie asked.
Lizzy slapped the table hard enough that her coffee sloshed out. “Now look what you made me do. Sometimes, you make me so mad I could shake you, Alora Raine.”
Allie shrugged. “It’s a sister thing or maybe it’s a middle-child thing. Do you think maybe you should see a therapist for your control issues?”
Lizzy jumped to her feet and grabbed a fistful of paper towels. “It’s not a middle-child thing. Fiona doesn’t make me as mad as you do. There’s no way you really slept with Blake Dawson. One, you’re too smart to do something that crazy, and two, he’s a one-night-stand kind of guy. You’re not wild enough to be his type.”
“Deke says the same thing, so I guess if Lucifer’s protégé and God’s right arm say it’s so, then it must be true.” She continued eating her breakfast but down deep she wondered if Toby and Blake had brought home women from the bar, too.
“Go on and ruin your life again,” Lizzy huffed. “I’m trying to warn you, but I can only be the watchman. I can sit in the tower and tell you what I see coming, but I can’t make you steer clear of it.”
Allie picked up her empty plate and headed to the sink with it. “Well, sister, you enjoy the view from your tower. I’m heading over to that abominable place to paint. See you at supper.”
Allie parked beside a truck but didn’t pay a lot of attention to it, figuring it was Toby’s. A streak of lightning so close that the air crackled sent her running to the porch. She slipped inside the front door to the sounds of people talking in the kitchen. She quickly removed her yellow slicker, hung it on the coatrack, and replaced her rubber boots with her work boots.
Shooter hopped off the sofa. Tangled sheets and a blanket gave testimony that Toby hadn’t gone back to Muenster early that morning and was one of the voices in the kitchen. She thought that she recognized the other voice as Deke’s. She didn’t really care how much testosterone was sitting around the table; she only wanted a cup of hot coffee to wrap her hands around before she started to work in Blake’s bedroom. She intended to have the walls and trim painted today. The doors would have to wait until Monday, but by the middle of next week her goal was to have that room completely done and the living room and hall ceilings ready to texture. Then she and Blake would really have something to celebrate.
Her line of thinking stopped abruptly when she walked into the kitchen and saw the man at the stove had a woman draped around him like a snake, one hand on his butt, the other pressed against his chest as she kissed him.
Allie whipped around, feeling a blush burning her cheeks, only to see Blake sitting at the table with another blonde who looked almost identical to the one plastered against the man she could only assume was Blake’s brother, Toby. She risked another quick glance and saw that Toby had the same face shape, hair color, and smile as Blake, but his eyes were blue and he had a faint white scar across one cheek.
“Where’s Deke?” she asked, her brows furrowing into a single line.
“At home, I guess.” Blake quickly pushed back his chair and stood up. “Allie, I didn’t know you were coming to work today.”
“Evidently not,” she said. “I’ll get a cup of coffee and go on to the bedroom to work. Y’all don’t let me interrupt.”
Her work boots sounded like shotgun blasts with every step as she crossed the kitchen, poured a cup of coffee, and carried it down the hallway. She shut Blake’s bedroom door behind her and sat down on the dirty carpet with a thud, hot coffee sloshing out. Her hands shook so badly that she finally set the cup down and put her head in her hands.
“Allie? Can I come in please? We need to talk.” Blake said from the other side of the door.<
br />
“It’s your house,” she said.
He slipped into the room, shut the door behind him, and sat down in front of her, keeping a foot of space between them. Before he could say a word, another knock on the door startled both of them. “Hey, is Walter hiding in there? I’ve got a sweet little lady out here hunting for him. I told her we don’t have a Walter here, but she doesn’t believe me.”
Blake rolled up on his feet and offered her his hand. “What you saw wasn’t what was happening.”
She ignored the hand and got up on her own, leaving the coffee behind.
Irene slung the door wide open and marched inside with her hands on her hips. A pair of Lizzy’s designer jeans hung on her skinny hips and the red-sequined top that Allie wore to the church Christmas party a few weeks before had slipped off one shoulder, letting a white bra strap shine right along with her veined skin. Her thin gray hair hung in wet strands and the makeup she’d applied streaked down her face settling in the wrinkles. The jeans were soaked as well as the sequined top and her poor frail body had a faint blue cast from the cold wind and rain.
“What in the hell are you doing with another woman in this house, Walter? Three of them to be exact and those two in the kitchen are barroom Rosies if I’ve ever seen one. This one might look decent but she’s in your bedroom behind closed doors and where is the furniture?” Irene stopped for a breath and slapped Blake on the arm. “You’ve got some explainin’ to do. I swear to God, I don’t know why I even bother with you. It’s a wonder your mother hasn’t taken a fryin’ pan to those bitches.”
Toby cocked his head to one side just like Allie had seen Blake do when he found something amusing. Well, her grandmother was not funny, and the disease that was eating holes in her memory wasn’t a bit comical.
“Breakfast is served. Laney and Lisa are already digging in. There’s plenty for all y’all,” Toby said.
“Is this one of your lazy-ass brothers? Where is your mother?” Irene demanded.
“Granny, this is not Walter. It’s Blake Dawson and his brother, Toby Dawson. I’m Allie, your granddaughter, and those women in the kitchen are not here to see Walter,” Allie said.
“I’m ready to go home now. I’m cold and I’m hungry.” She looped her arm through Allie’s and marched past Toby, with Blake right behind them. They’d barely made it to the living room when Katy knocked softly on the door, pushed it open, and sighed.
“I figured I’d find you over here. Good God, Mama! If you don’t get pneumonia from getting out in that getup, it’ll be a miracle. I’m surprised you didn’t fall and break a hip on the ice.” She grabbed Allie’s yellow slicker from the coatrack and slung it around Irene’s shoulders.
“Allie was in the bedroom with that man,” Irene tattled. “And I’m not old. I can damn well climb over a fence any old day of the week and the ice broke when I stepped on it so stop your bitchin’.”
“It’s the room I’m working on,” Allie explained.
“Introductions?” Toby asked.
“Sorry.” Blake grinned sheepishly. “This is Allie, the woman who’s redoing the house and who put the roof on for us. This is Katy, her mother, and this is Irene, her grandmother. Ladies, this is Toby, my brother and business partner in the Lucky Penny.”
So she wasn’t his friend Allie, or his neighbor Allie. Heaven forbid that she might be his girlfriend Allie. Hell, no! She was the woman who was redoing his house. Lizzy had been right all along. She didn’t have enough sense to know not to wade right into hell.
Toby kissed Irene’s hand, shook hands with Katy and with Allie, and said, “I’m right pleased to make your acquaintance, ladies.”
Irene’s eyes started at Toby’s toes and traveled slowly up his long legs to his zipper, hesitated a brief second, and went on up to the top of his head. “Are you kin to Blake?”
“Yes, ma’am. He’s my brother, and I’ll be moving into the house with him in a couple of months,” Toby answered.
“Who are them cheap barroom Rosies in the kitchen?” she asked.
“Just a couple of women who followed me and Deke home last night,” Toby said.
“Like a couple of dogs in heat, I suppose,” Irene said.
Toby chuckled. “Don’t let them hear you say that.”
“I’ll say whatever the hell I want. Truth is truth, don’t matter if you pour chocolate syrup or cover it up with fresh cow shit, it’s still the truth.”
“Lord, help us all,” Katy moaned. “Allie, you’ll have to stay home with her today. You know how she gets after she runs off and comes over here. I can’t manage her at the store, and Lizzy sure can’t keep an eye on her on a Saturday at the feed store. That’s her busiest day.”
“I thought she was with you at the store. Lizzy said you’d taken her,” Allie said.
Katy shook her head. “I did but she stole my car keys, slipped out the back door, went home and obviously changed her clothes, and here she is. I had to get Nadine to loan me her van to come get her. The car is parked at home. You can come get me at five.”
“I’ll be there,” Allie nodded. “Go on back to the store. I’ll take her home and get her warmed up.”
“We need to talk,” Blake whispered.
“Nothing to talk about.” Allie took off her work boots and slipped her feet back down into the rubber boots.
“Later.”
“Probably not,” she said.
He pulled a heavy jacket from the rack and held it out to her. “I tell you, it’s not what it looked like. Take my coat. You can’t go out there without something to keep you warm. That rain is cold.”
She shook her head. “I come from sturdy stock. I’m not sugar or salt, so I don’t melt in cold rain. See you in church tomorrow.”
“And you and your brother are welcome to come home with us for lunch,” Katy said as she escorted Irene out onto the porch. “I won’t take no for an answer.”
“We’d love to have Sunday dinner with y’all,” Toby said.
“Tell Deke, too,” Katy threw over her shoulder.
“You sure you want to do that?” Allie asked Blake.
“Wouldn’t miss it for the world, would we, Toby?” Blake said. He turned to his brother. “Now can you please get rid of yours and Deke’s women so we can take a drive around the ranch? It might be sleeting, but you can still see what I’ve gotten done around here.” Blake talked to Toby but most of it was for Allie’s ears.
“Lookin’ forward to it, ma’am.” Toby nodded toward Allie.
Blake laid a hand on her shoulder. “I did not…” he started.
She shrugged it off.
“I don’t care.” She closed the door behind her.
Chapter Twenty
Is that the woman that’s got your heart in a twist?” Toby asked.
“What makes you think that?” Blake asked.
“You’ve got that look in your eyes.”
Blake shrugged.
A lot of good it would do him if he did fall in love with Allie. She’d declared that she didn’t care. Just when he was contemplating hanging up his wild ways and entering into a serious relationship with a decent woman, she said that she didn’t care. Blake Dawson, the player, had been played.
“What’s on your mind, big brother?” Toby asked. “What happened in that bedroom?”
Blake shook his head. “I’m not totally sure, but I believe the tables got turned on me and it’s one strange feeling. I don’t want to talk about it right now. We don’t have time for women.”
“Except for Laneys and Lisas, right?”
“Not even for that if we’re going to get this place in shape in four years like we said we’d do,” Blake said.
Toby headed for the kitchen. “Man, I’m not goin’ celibate for four years, not for this ranch, not for you, and not even for God. And you ain’t, either, because when you go a month without a woman you get cranky as hell.”
“Who’s goin’ a month without a woman?” Lisa asked. “We’ve been
poutin’ because y’all weren’t here to share this breakfast with us and now it’s time for us to go. We’ve both got appointments at eleven in Wichita Falls and the roads are probably getting icy. But don’t pout, darlin’s, we’ll be in touch. You can’t get rid of us. We know where you live.”
Laney wrapped her arms around Blake’s neck and laid her head on his chest. “Next time, darlin’, I’ll prove that lust can get rid of that love bug faster than hittin’ delete on the computer. You boys stay ready and maybe we’ll see you at the bar in a couple of weeks.”
Lisa tiptoed and kissed Toby on the cheek. “It was fun. It was real. It was real fun, but next time, talk your brother into joining us.”
“I’m not into the kinky stuff.” Toby chuckled.
“Then we’ll get Laney to join the party and call it an orgy, not a threesome,” Lisa said huskily. “Mmmm, thinkin’ about that makes me go all soft and mushy inside.”
“We could invite Deke if we’re having an orgy,” Laney said.
“Dammit!” Blake doubled up his fist and hit his palm with it as soon as the women were gone. “I don’t want those two comin’ around here. I’m trying to build a relationship with the community, not start a whorehouse.”
Toby laid a hand on Blake’s shoulder. “Amen to that and I won’t let it happen again. I had too many beers and wasn’t thinkin’ straight. Let’s go eat breakfast if those two women left anything for us. And then we’ll take a look at what you’ve done. I’d planned on helping you clear off some mesquite or repair fence but it’s rainin’. I guess we could tear down the ceilings in the hall and living room,” Toby said.
“And put up the new,” Blake said. “Even if my carpenter doesn’t come back, that would be a start. You any good at bedding and taping?”
“I got the bedding part down real good but like I said, I’m not into the kinky shit. Why wouldn’t Allie come back?”
“I’m not sayin’ another word except to say that you have not lost your touch with these biscuits, brother,” Blake said.
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