Wild Cowboy Ways

by Carolyn Brown

  Lizzy met her mother, grandmother, and sister at the door. She clucked her tongue like an old hen or an old woman when she saw her grandmother wearing jeans and a sparkly top, with a yellow rain slicker flopping open with every step. “I’m not even going to ask. I’m going to work and we’ll talk about it this evening.”

  Katy glanced nervously toward Allie. “Store should have opened thirty minutes ago. If I don’t get down there, the gossip will be flyin’ over town like Santa Claus at Christmas.”

  “I’ve got it. Both of you get going. I’ll get her dry and fed, then I’ll watch her like a hawk. It’s not my day to clean, but I’ll take care of the house cleaning for you, Mama,” Allie shooed them both out the door.

  Lord only knew, she needed something to keep her mind occupied that day or she’d go crazy. She’d never known such acute jealousy as she did when she saw that two-bit, brazen blond hussy who looked like she was about to kiss Blake. She hadn’t even been that angry when Riley came home and told her that he was in love with another woman.

  “My tits are frozen,” Granny said. “Help me get out of these hooker clothes and into a warm shower. Why’d you tell me to wear this shit anyway? You know I’m old.”

  Allie pulled the ruined sequin top up over her grandmother’s head and marched her to the shower. When she was tugging the jeans down from her granny’s hips, she realized the old girl had on two different shoes. One was a brown sneaker that belonged to Katy. It was laced properly and tied in a perfect little bow. The other was a lovely black-velvet flat that Lizzy kept for special occasions. Lizzy would gripe for days, but there was nothing to do but toss them in the trash now because they were ruined.

  “Granny, where did you find this shoe?” Allie asked.

  “Me? You’re the one who put me in that ridiculous outfit and then let me go out in the weather so don’t ask dumb questions. I’ve got more sense than to pick out shit like that,” Irene fussed. “I can take off my own underpants and bra. You put a towel on the vanity and when my bones are warm, I’ll come out and get dressed.”

  Allie sighed. “How about a nice warm sweat suit, too?”

  “Okay but don’t you give me none of that stuff that looks like hooker clothes. I keep telling you, I’m not Audrey.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Allie said with a nod.

  She laid the clothing out and then sat down in the rocking chair beside the window in her grandmother’s room. She could hear her grandmother singing something about the love of her life. Allie wondered if it was something she made up or if the song had been popular back in her younger life.

  Leaning her head back staring at the ceiling she replayed that introduction. She was the carpenter, nothing more or less. Blake didn’t throw an arm around her shoulder or even wink when he said that. The moment had brought the truth to the surface. She was nothing more than another notch on his bedpost.

  The headache started with a jabbing pain in her right temple and traveled across her forehead around to the back of her skull. She shut her eyes and put her hand over them to keep out the light. She didn’t even try to open them when she heard the shower stop or when her grandmother grumbled about the ugly pink sweat suit that was laid out for her.

  She did open them when her granny kicked the rung of the rocker. “What the hell’s wrong with you? Surely you haven’t let that boy next door get in your pants and give you a guilty headache. If you have, I hope to hell you used protection because your mama will crap little green apples if you get pregnant.”

  “Granny, come sit down at the vanity and let me blow-dry your hair and curl it for you. It looks pitiful,” Allie said.

  Irene clapped her hands. “And my fingernails and toenails, too. Let’s have a beauty shop day. I could trim your hair and put it up in sponge rollers.”

  Allie wouldn’t let her grandmother near her hair with a pair of fingernail clippers much less scissors, and she doubted if there were any sponge rollers left in the house. It had been years since she’d seen even a stray one.

  “Let’s do you all up pretty first and then we’ll talk about my hair and nails. It might be time for dinner by then, and I was thinkin’ about chocolate chip pancakes.” Allie evaded the idea with expert precision.

  Irene clapped louder. “I like it when you stay home with me, Allie. You know I can’t remember too good these days. Sometimes whole days get away from me.”

  Allie gave her a hug. “You smell like baby powder.”

  “It’s a nice clean scent that goes well with any perfume,” Irene said seriously. “I bet I’ve told you that a hundred times.”

  Allie led her to the vanity and set her on the cute little brass stool with a pink velvet pillow. “Yes, you have, but it takes a lot of tellin’ for me to remember. Now, while I do your hair, you can tell me stories about when you were a little girl.”

  Irene prattled on, telling tales of her childhood that Allie had heard dozens if not hundreds of times. Letting her own mind wander while she curled her grandmother’s thin gray hair and did her nails in the bright pink nail polish that she liked, she kept going over and over the details of that morning. Did she miss a sly wink? She slowed the events down and could honestly say that he had not even looked her way when he introduced her as the woman who’d been working on his house.

  “And then you grew up and married that sumbitch.” Granny’s final words brought her back into the present.

  “Yes, I did,” Allie said, and her phone rang.

  Granny stuck out her lower lip in a pout. “This is supposed to be our day. Don’t you dare invite that boy from next door over here. He’ll get in our way and ruin everything.”

  Allie checked the ID hoping it was Blake, but no such luck. “It’s Fiona, Granny, not Blake.”

  “Give me that phone.” The older woman jerked it out of her hand. “Fiona, Allie did my hair and my nails and I’m all pretty for you to come home this weekend. Are you on the way? I miss you so much. When was the last time you came home? It’s been five years hasn’t it?”

  A pause and Irene set her mouth in a firm line. “Bullshit! You were not home at Thanksgiving. I might be old, but I ain’t stupid. I know…who in the hell is this? I don’t want any magazines so stop calling here.”

  And like that, in the blink of an eye, Irene was off in another time warp. “Take this phone and tell those people that I’m sick to death of them buggin’ the shit out of me about magazines. And they are not getting my credit card number, either.”

  “Fiona?” Allie said. “Are you still there?”

  “Mama called and told me about Granny running off again this morning. I bet she was a sight in that getup. And she said that Blake looks at you like he could eat you up, her words, not mine. And that she invited him to dinner tomorrow after church so she could see y’all together. She’s worried about all this, Allie,” Fiona said.

  Allie had forgotten about dinner the next day. She couldn’t face Blake that soon. She would plead a headache, which might not be a lie the way it was pounding right then, and stay home from church. As soon as the family left, she would run away to Deke’s and stay there all day.

  Fiona raised her voice. “Are you still there? You didn’t hang up on me, did you?”

  That’s when Allie heard the cling of a cash register in the background and lots of people talking at once. Fiona worked in a prestigious law firm in Houston, so why were there noises like a fast food place in the background?

  “Where are you?” Allie asked.

  “At work,” Fiona said quickly. “Well, not actually at work. I’m at a coffee shop right next door getting a midmorning cup of coffee.”

  Allie tried to blink away the headache, but it didn’t work. “I thought I heard cash register noises.”

  “Got to go. Just wanted to let you know that Mama is watching you close. See you at the wedding this spring,” Fiona said.

  Allie hit the END button and shoved her phone back into her pocket. She heard a soft snore, more like a kitten’s pur
r, and turned to find Irene curled up on her bed in a ball, sound asleep. Figuring it was a fine time to straighten her grandmother’s room and keep an eye on her at the same time, Allie, hurried off to the utility room for her basket of cleaners.

  “Poor old darlin’,” she mumbled, “it has to be hard on her doing all that time travel. I can not imagine living in so many worlds every day.”

  She’d finished cleaning the bathroom and had started dusting all the empty perfume bottles on Irene’s dresser, when her phone rang a second time that morning. Expecting it to be Lizzy after she got the gossip of two women keeping three men company the night before, she was surprised to see Blake’s number flashing on the screen.

  “Hello,” she answered cautiously. “If you’re calling about the bedroom, I told you in the beginning that I’d have to take days off for family pretty often.”

  “We’re going to take down the ceiling in the hall and living room and put up the new drywall. I’m not getting into the bedding and taping, though. We figure we can do this much and come Monday it will be ready for you. Deke is coming over soon as he gets his chores done to help us, too. But that’s not why I’m calling. We need to talk, Allie.”

  “You’re coming to Sunday dinner. We’ll talk then.” She picked up a tarnished silver hairbrush and dusted under it.

  “Are we still on for a celebration when you finish the bedroom?”

  She had to scramble to hold on to the phone and the brush at the same time. “I have no idea. Wouldn’t you much rather go to a bar and pick up a bimbo and have dinner with her, rather than the woman who is working on your house?”

  “What are you so mad about? It’s me who has the right to be mad since you said you didn’t care. What am I, Allie? A notch on your bedpost?” His tone turned edgy.

  She shut her eyes against the headache that threatened. “I’m not fighting with you on the phone, Blake Dawson.”

  “Then I’ll come over there and we can fight in person.”

  She didn’t want to see him or talk to him, on the phone or in person, until the steam stopped pouring out of her ears. He’d accused her of being nothing more than one of those bar bitches who’d go to bed with anything that had a penis. Notch on her bedpost, indeed! If they compared, hers would have two notches where his would look like a carved-up totem pole.

  “I think we’d both best cool off before we see each other,” she said tersely.

  “Maybe so. I’ll see you in church,” he said, and the phone went dark.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Allie woke up with the determination that she would not go to church and she would not have Sunday dinner with her family. She planned a shopping trip to Wichita Falls where she would check out all the after-holiday sales and maybe take in an afternoon matinee.

  She went through six outfits that morning before finally settling on a long straight skirt in brown and beige chevron stripes and a sweater the same color as her eyes. She curled her hair and applied makeup, glanced at herself in the mirror, and decided she was entirely too bland. She traipsed across the landing to Fiona’s room and rifled through the accessories she’d left in her closet. She tried on a pretty scarf but the damn thing choked her. Finally, she settled on a heavy gold necklace with a set of crossed pistols, covered with sparkling fake diamonds.

  “Making a statement, are you?” Lizzy said from the doorway.

  “Dressing up a ho-hum look,” Allie answered.

  Lizzy’s smile was actually sweet that morning. “I hope you’ve finally seen the light and those pistols are a sign that you’re ready to shoot the cowboy next door.”

  Allie whipped around so fast that she dropped the scarf she’d tried on. “Why would you say that?”

  Lizzy hugged Allie. “I heard about what happened yesterday morning and I was right. Blake was just leading you on.”

  Allie changed the subject. “You look pretty this morning. Red has always been your color.”

  Lizzy smoothed the front of the red sweater dress. “I came to borrow a scarf from Fiona to dress down all this red. It’s kind of loud for a preacher’s wife, don’t you think?”

  Allie brushed past her on the way out of the room. “You already toned it down with those black leggings and boots. If you really wanted to look like a hussy, you could have worn fishnet hose and spike heels. And you’d better remember to put whatever you borrow right back where it was. I’m pretty sure that Fiona takes inventory every time she comes home.”

  “How we could all three have the same parents is a complete mystery,” Lizzy said. “Oh, yeah, I invited Grady and Mitch to Sunday dinner. Mama said she’s invited the neighbors. I figure it will be a good time for you to see the difference between a man of God and a wild cowboy.”

  Allie bit her lip to keep from smarting off, but she did touch the pistols and wish for one second that they fired real bullets and that God would look the other way. If she didn’t go to church, Blake would think she was running from him. If she did go, she’d have to endure the business of talking to him as well as Grady. Lord, why did life have to be so complicated?

  She still hadn’t made up her mind what she was going to do when she reached the foyer. Granny sat ramrod straight in the chair beside the foyer table. She was dressed in a cute little navy blue pantsuit and her shoes matched. Her hair was combed back in waves and her lipstick had settled into the wrinkles around her mouth.

  “I don’t want to go to church,” she whispered.

  “Me, either. Let’s run away,” Allie said softly.

  “We can’t. We are strong women and we don’t run from our problems,” Granny said.

  “What is your problem?” Allie asked.

  “I forget where the bathroom is, but I can depend on you to remember, can’t I?”

  Allie sighed. “Yes, Granny, I will sit beside you and remember for you.”

  Snowflakes drifted to land among a few dead leaves, blown in from the scrub oak trees across the street from the church that morning. Would winter never end? Allie was so ready for spring, for the sound of birds chirping instead of sleet pounding on the metal house roof, to sit on the porch swing in the evening instead of having to be inside all the time.

  Allie, her mother, and grandmother had all gone together in Katy’s vehicle. Lizzy had tried her best to fix it so that Allie would ride in the backseat with Grady in Mitch’s truck, but Allie had sidestepped the issue by saying that she’d help with Granny.

  When they reached the church, Allie manipulated it so that she sat on the end of the pew next to her grandmother. Katy was next in line and then Lizzy with Mitch beside her and Grady on the far end. Lizzy didn’t spare a bit on the dirty looks, but Allie could endure those if she didn’t have to sit beside Grady.

  She glanced over her shoulder after the announcements were made and the preacher was making his way from the short deacon’s bench to the pulpit. Deke, Toby, and Blake were all sitting in the back pew. It was the first time that antsy feeling hadn’t forewarned her that he was in close proximity. Did that mean that whatever they had—friendship, relationship, or one-night fling—was over?

  Deke waved.

  Toby smiled and nodded.

  Blake looked straight ahead.

  She whipped back around and from that moment, the preacher might as well have been reading the dictionary because Allie didn’t hear a single word.

  Like a record playing on a loop, she kept hearing that television commercial from a year ago. It advertised a dating site and said that love didn’t come first, but like did. She argued with it, saying that it was a little late for that since she and Blake had already had sex. But the damn commercial took on a life of its own and fought with her.

  Sex, like, and love are three different things, it said.

  That stumped her train of thought completely as she analyzed the statement and decided it was right. Sex, like what Deke and Toby had Friday night or what she and Blake had on Friday afternoon, was a very different thing from like or love.


  But what about the sex Blake and I had? What does that mean? She didn’t get an answer from the commercial or from the preacher who was preaching from Psalms Twenty-three that morning.

  She liked Blake as a person, as a hardworking rancher, but she was not going to be the friend who hopped over the fence for booty calls whenever Blake wanted a quick romp in the hay. If that’s what he wanted, he could call his ex-wife, Scarlett, to warm up his bed.

  She folded her hands in her lap and tried to listen to the preacher. It didn’t work because within seconds, she was back to the argument. She’d followed her heart when she married Riley and intended to be his wife until death parted them. But she’d learned after two years that physical death wasn’t the only way to end a marriage. It could simply die in its sleep or it could be murdered by a two-timin’ husband.

  That antsy feeling that said someone was staring at her made her look over her shoulder. Blake’s lips curled into a smile when their gazes locked and held for several seconds. When she started to turn back around, she caught Grady’s gaze from the other end of the pew. It had the intensity of a hungry hound chasing a rabbit and made her skin crawl.

  Trust my heart when it failed me? Trust my sister’s advice when it makes me want to run for the hills? Maybe I should simply forget all about men and become a nun. I bet a convent could use my skills as a carpenter.

  If the pistols resting between her breasts could have fired for-real bullets, Allie would have aimed, fired, blown away the smoke, and toted her sister’s lifeless body out to the back side of the twenty acres known as Audrey’s Place for the buzzards to feast upon when the family got back to Audrey’s after church.

  Damn Lizzy’s sorry ass to hell for eternity. Allie didn’t even care that she was damning a soon-to-be preacher’s wife or that the little dinner place cards done up with pictures of hearts were a right cute idea. She was sitting smack dab between Grady and Blake and Lizzy had done the planning.