Wild Cowboy Ways

by Carolyn Brown

  “Every single damn word,” she mumbled.

  “Word about what?” he asked. “It’s snowing again and you don’t feel much like texturing a ceiling, so I vote we cuddle up on the sofa and spend the day together. We can turn off our cell phones and pretend we’re stranded on a desert island.”

  “How long have I been here?” she asked.

  “Since late last evening. Today is Monday.”

  Had they cleared things up? If not, then why was he being so nice? “I’ve always wanted to get lost on an island. Hand me that banana and get the canoe ready for us to row to the island.”

  Did she say that out loud? Good lord! What was the matter with her? They still had to clear a hell of a lot of things up before she cuddled up with him on the sofa all day.

  He tossed it toward her and she caught it with both hands. “It’s working. My headache isn’t as bad.”

  “I’m the hangover guru. Stick with me and I’ll take care of you,” he said.

  “Sounds to me like you’re a guy who’s used that line many times,” she said, grabbing her aching head.

  “Maybe I should write country music about curing hangovers.” He extended his hand and helped her off the mattress. “Finish the banana on the way to the shower. Everything is laid out and ready for you.”

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Hot water washed away more of the headache, but it didn’t do much to take away the guilt. What had she been thinking? She’d been put in charge of her grandmother for the afternoon and she’d failed…again.

  Alora Raine Logan was a failure and she admitted it. Strip stark naked, standing under the shower spray on the Lucky Penny, which was every bit as appropriate as an AA meeting for alcoholics. She had failed in her marriage—couldn’t hold Riley’s interest. Failed as a daughter—proved she couldn’t be trusted. Failed as a sister—weekends were the only time Lizzy got to spend with Mitch.

  “Sorry sumbitch that Mitch is, he’s her sumbitch.” Allie wiped at the tears streaming down her cheeks.

  She slid down into the bathtub and curled up in a tight little ball, sobbing as the hot water streamed over her body. She didn’t hear the little plastic rings holding the shower curtain slide across the rod. She had no idea anyone was in the bathroom until Blake was in the tub with her. Still dressed in pajama pants and a knit shirt, he sat down behind her and gathered her into his arms. One minute she was sitting on the hard porcelain of an old bathtub, the next she was curled up in his lap, her cheek against his chest.

  She started to say something, but he put a finger over her lips.

  “The depression is the alcohol talking, not Allie Logan. Whatever happened is water under the bridge. Burn the damn bridge and forget the past,” he whispered.

  His words were so poetic that they brought on a fresh batch of tears. She didn’t care if it was just another line he’d used. Didn’t care…they were the words that had started all this to begin with.

  “I do care,” she said between sobs.

  “About what?” He brushed strands of wet hair from her face.

  She took several seconds to get her thoughts together. “I care about Lizzy and Mama and Granny. I don’t care if you are telling me pretty words that you’ve told lots of women before me. I don’t care about your past. I’ll burn those bridges for you if you’ll hand me a stick of firewood and a match.”

  How he managed to stand up in a slippery, wet tub with her in his arms, then step out without falling, was a miracle. But suddenly, she found herself wrapped in that brand-new robe he’d talked about and her hand was in his, letting him lead her to the living room. He tossed a quilt over the sofa and motioned for her to sit. She obeyed without arguing and he carefully brought the ends of the quilt up around her legs.

  “Don’t go away.” He smiled.

  Leaving wet footprints on the floor and dripping water as he disappeared into his bedroom, he whistled a tune that she recognized as “Honey Bee” by Blake Shelton. In a few minutes he returned, dressed in gray sweat bottoms and a long-sleeved thermal shirt. He carried a towel in one hand and a hairbrush in the other.

  “Slide forward about a foot,” he said.

  When she did, he settled in behind her, one long muscular leg on each side of her body. He towel-dried her hair and then massaged her scalp with his fingertips. Holy smoking shit! Her body felt like a rag doll and yet every nerve was on high alert, wanting more, begging for his wonderful hands.

  “Mmmm,” she murmured.

  “Is it making it better?” he drawled.

  He started brushing her hair and a whole new set of emotions surfaced. She was afraid to move an inch for fear she’d find out this was all a dream and she would wake up with that grinding hangover, or worse yet, in her lonely bed at home.

  His hands grazed her cheeks as he pulled her damp hair back to run the brush through it. Then he leaned forward and kissed her softly on the side of her neck.

  “We were going to talk,” she whispered.

  “We are talkin’, darlin’. We’ll use words when necessary,” he said softly.

  No one had ever cared enough about Allie to sit in a tub with her when she was crying or brush her hair, much less talk to her without using words. Sitting there with her eyes shut, feeling Blake’s long legs against her body and what had to be an erection pressing against her back, she couldn’t help but wonder if the third time was the charm. First there was Granny’s Walter. Then there was Katy’s Ray. And now there was Blake, who was the third. If it was a real fairy tale, the prince would come along and win the princess.

  “Now that’s as far-fetched as anything can be,” she murmured to herself.

  “What?” he asked.

  She clamped a hand over her mouth. “Did I say that out loud?”

  “You did. Want to explain?” he asked.

  She shook her head and leaned back so she could look up into his eyes. “Do you have your contacts in place?”

  “No, ma’am, and I’m blind without them or my glasses so my hands are seeing for me this morning. They tell me that you are beautiful beyond words.” He smiled.

  “And when do you wear glasses? After a Friday night of bar hopping?”

  He reached behind him to the end table and put his glasses on. “Or on a nice rainy day so I can see you better. I don’t like them but they come in handy when my allergies act up.”

  “I like them on you. They make your eyes even greener.”

  “Then I’ll throw away my contacts and wear them every day just for you,” Blake said sincerely.

  In all the fairy tales she’d read or that Granny had read to her in her youth, the prince had never worn glasses or been nearsighted. This had to be reality.

  “You don’t have to do that, Blake. Do you always believe what your hands say?” she teased.

  “Not always but my heart never lies to me and it’s in agreement with my hands,” he whispered.

  “Oh!”

  He stopped and kissed her hair. “I’m sorry. Did I hit a tangle?”

  “No, I should call Mama and Lizzy. It’s a wonder they haven’t called out the militia already,” she said.

  He pulled the brush to the end of her dark hair and then laid it on the end table. “I talked to Lizzy last night and your mother this morning. They know where you are, that you are alive, and that I’ll bring you home sometime later.”

  “I can drive myself home. I drove over here drunk, so I reckon I can get back when I’m sober,” she said.

  “Not in that truck out there with the front end caved in. You’re lucky that you didn’t hurt yourself, but then God protects drunks and fools,” he said with a chuckle.

  She crawled off the sofa and pulled the robe tightly across her bare breasts. “I was hoping that part was a dream. Did I really wreck my truck?”

  “You did, darlin’,” he answered. “Look out the window. Is that the one you bought when you were sixteen?”

  When she peeked through the blinds, she expected another burst
of tears. She’d saved money from working with her dad to buy that truck and now it was totaled. Sure, she could probably find used parts and have someone fix the thing, but was it worth it? Was this an omen that she should let go of all the past?

  “I’m sorry.” Blake’s arms circled her waist and he buried his face in her hair. “I’m sure it means a lot to you, but it will take a fortune to fix it.”

  “Thank God the folks who built Audrey’s and this house as well put them on a good solid foundation.” She leaned back against his chest. “It’s time to say good-bye to that truck and send her off to that great junkyard in the sky.”

  “She will be able to visit with my first wrecked vehicle that looked a whole lot like her. Only I was eighteen and probably drunker than you were last night. Shooter and I thought we were experiencing our very first earthquake.”

  “What happened that you got so drunk? And did it really shake the house that hard?”

  “Second question first.” He led her back to the sofa, sat down, and pulled her into his lap. “Yes, it did, and I figure from the way that front end is caved in that you hit the gas instead of the brake. If you’d been sober, you would have stiffened up and come out of it with a whiplash at the least, but you were limber as a wet noodle. I did find a couple of bruises up under your arms where you must’ve hit the steering wheel but that’s all.”

  She pushed up the sleeves of his robe and sure enough there were two long, skinny strips of purple under each arm as if she’d hugged that steering wheel at time of impact.

  He kissed each bruise and pulled the sleeves back down for her. “Other question. My folks called a lawyer and he took care of things. I knew they were right. Hell, I knew I was making a mistake when I was standing there drunk and saying my vows to love, honor, and respect Scarlett.” He wrapped his arms around her even tighter. “But it didn’t make it sting any less for them to treat me like a child so I went out that night and got drunk again. I spent three days in the hospital with a concussion. When I saw my truck after they’d pulled it from around the big pecan tree, I decided I’d never drink that much again.”

  “Did you keep that promise to yourself?” she asked.

  “Almost all the time. Nowadays, three beers is my limit. If I have a shot of Jack, then two beers is my limit.”

  She readjusted her position until she was sitting in his lap, tilted her chin up, moistened her lips, and wrapped her arms around his neck. “Me, too. I’m making that promise to myself and sealing it with a kiss from you right here and now.”

  Lips met lips in a fiery kiss that erased the argument. Tongues did a mating dance that included forgetting and forgiving, leaving Allie and Blake in a wonderful vacuum with room for only two beating hearts. The heat between them burned away the bad feelings and nothing mattered but the future.

  “Wow! Just wow,” he said.

  “Was it as good for you as it was for me?” she asked.

  He traced the outline of her lips with his forefinger. “Better. So we’ve made our pact that we aren’t getting drunk off our asses ever again. Does that mean we’re going to watch each other’s backs to be sure we keep our word?”

  She stood up and moved to the other end of the sofa. There was no way she could keep her mind on a conversation with his warm breath on her body and his arms wrapped securely around her waist.

  “I like you, Blake Dawson.” She settled down with her back against the arm and sitting Indian-style, the robe covering her legs. Her heart said that she loved him, but she wasn’t totally sure that there weren’t a few drops of whiskey and tequila left in her blood that might be influencing the major organ in her body.

  “I like you, too, Allie Logan,” he said, and smiled.

  “Why?”

  “You said it first so you have to tell me why you like me first. And I’m leaving my glasses on so I can see you, because your face does not lie.”

  “Oh, really?”

  “Yes, ma’am.” He stared into her eyes. “Just how far does this ‘like’ business go?”

  She inhaled and let it out slowly. “It’s real hard for me to trust anyone, and I have commitment issues after two years with a husband who left me for another woman. He was a lot like Mitch. He manipulated me into giving him what he wanted and made me feel guilty when I didn’t cave in. The only thing I refused to do was quit working, and that was a big thorn in our marriage.”

  “Riley abused you?” Blake asked.

  “Yes, but I was young, naïve, and very stupid. I didn’t know that it was abuse. He’d sigh and say that he wished my job at least let me dress like a lady instead of a homeless person. But he had good qualities and we had good times. It wasn’t all bad. I guess that’s why I didn’t see the infidelity when it was right before my face.”

  “That’s just wrong,” Blake whispered coldly.

  She could feel the last of the ice chipping away from her heart. Was this what it was like to have a best friend, someone that a person could tell anything? “I don’t think my heart was broken but more relieved that I didn’t have to keep having the fight over my working situation. But my pride was in shambles. It was two years before I went out on a date and I figured out real quick that I didn’t believe a nice word the man said. It wasn’t him but me. I didn’t trust men.”

  “And now?”

  “I like you and I trust you, but I want to know why you introduced me to your brother as the woman who was fixing this house instead of your friend or since we’d been to bed, as your girlfriend,” she said.

  He moved down the sofa and took her hands in his. “It was an awkward situation, Allie. Those women from the bar were in the kitchen. Your granny showed up looking like a half-drowned old madam. Don’t look at me like that. You know I’m tellin’ the truth. And then your mother came to get her. I wanted to tell you that I hadn’t slept with you and then turned around and slept with one of those women, but I couldn’t with all of them standing so close. And I didn’t think you’d want them to know that we’d had sex, and I didn’t know how to introduce you. And I’m battling this idea of us when you live so close.”

  “What does my living close have to do with anything?” she asked.

  “If things didn’t work out between us and there were hard feelings, well, we are neighbors. It’s complicated.”

  Sitting there with her small hands tucked into his big ones felt right as if that’s the way life should be. “I don’t want you to leave the Lucky Penny, so please make it work. I’ve opened my heart to you. That’s why I like you, Blake. I can talk to you. I can argue with you. I can be drunk and shake the hell out of your house and you don’t judge me. You don’t talk down to me or make me feel like less of a woman because of what I do.”

  He leaned forward and cupped her face in his hands. “You’ve had Deke as a best friend, but I’ve never had a best friend who was a woman, so this is all new territory for me. Why do I like you? Let me count the ways.”

  She pulled a hand free. “You don’t have to be complimentary. Just knowing that you consider me a best friend is enough reason to like me.”

  He captured her hand midair and kissed the knuckles. “What I feel for you goes far above ‘like,’ Allie Logan. I don’t know if it’s love because I’ve never really been in love before. But believe me when I tell you that I admire you for what you do. I think it’s downright sexy the way you can crawl up on a roof or fix a ceiling and honey, those cargo pants turn me on.”

  “Kind of like that song ‘She Thinks My Tractor’s Sexy’?” she said. “Only in reverse? He thinks my cargos are sexy?”

  “You got it. You can do all those things and then when we are in bed, you make me feel like I’m the greatest lover on earth.”

  Allie’s smile grew wider. “That’s because you are. And speaking of that, since we’re best friends, does that mean we can’t see if you’re still that great in bed? Like right now?”

  “Allie, I want more from you than booty calls. If we weren’t both close to thirt
y, I’d say this is where I’d ask you to go out with me.” He chuckled.

  She pulled both her hands free and cupped his cheeks in her hands. “We haven’t even been dating. You know that commercial that says like comes before love?”

  His hands covered hers. “I’ve seen it on television a couple of times.”

  Allie leaned forward and kissed him on the tip of the chin. “I’m not so sure I believe that. I think maybe they get mixed up sometimes and sometimes they arrive at the same time, but right now I don’t want to think about any of it. I want to go to bed with you.”

  He was a blur as he stood up and then suddenly she was in his arms and they were headed down the hallway. He kicked the bedroom door shut with his bare foot and laid her gently on the mattress.

  “I think that can be arranged.” He tugged the belt of the robe and laid the sides back. She shivered, not because of the cold wind howling outside or the rain pouring down on the new roof, but in anticipation of what was to come.

  When he removed his pajama pants her eyes went to the rock-hard erection and then upward as the shirt came off. They locked gazes and he started to stretch out beside her but she shook her head.

  “You’re saying no?” he asked.

  “I’m saying that we’ve had foreplay. I want you.” She pulled him down and wrapped her legs around his waist, wiggling just right so that a good firm thrust took him inside her.

  He braced himself on his elbows and started a steady rhythm complete with hot and heavy kisses that had her panting and rocking with him after the first few seconds. It didn’t surprise her one bit that this time was every bit as good as the last, but she didn’t dwell on anything but satisfying the deep need inside her body as she finally let go of all the past and trusted her heart and soul to the bad boy on the Lucky Penny.

  The last time they’d had sex she felt as if she were in a vacuum where no one else was allowed but her and Blake. This time it went beyond that into a place where nothing, not a single thought or a worry of any kind, entered her mind. She and Blake were on a sexual journey. She could see the strength in his strong arms when he rose up above her. The intensity in his eyes when she looked deep into them kept nothing back and gave her free access to delve all the way to his soul. His weight felt right when he eased down on top of her and then they were rocking together in a world where past and future didn’t matter. Only the present was allowed and it was glorious.