Hot Cowboy Nights

by Carolyn Brown

  Katy brushed away a tear. “Thank you, Lizzy.”

  “Mama, there’s no regrets in this corner for the way we were raised and I don’t reckon you’d get any complaints out of Fiona or Allie, either. So go have fun with your friends, and good luck at the blackjack table.” Lizzy winked.

  Fiona!

  She hurried through her supper and said she was going up to take a long, hot bath and then watch some television in her room. No lie there. She was going to do both but not until after she’d talked to her sister.

  Lizzy was antsy by the time she finished dessert. Could she really confide in anyone and could she trust her youngest sister to keep her secret? Her bedroom was a complete mess, as usual. Clothing strung everywhere and dust all over her dresser. The floor hadn’t been vacuumed in two weeks because when it had been her turn to clean the house last week, she’d rushed through it and ignored her room.

  “This is a teenager’s room, not a grown woman’s who owns a business,” she fussed as she started cleaning. “Granny said lots of problems could be solved with good hard work. Let’s see if she’s right. Maybe I won’t need to call Fiona after all.”

  Sweat streamed down her neck and through the valley between her breasts. She tugged at the wet band of her bra and kept on working until the room was neater than those times when it was Allie’s turn to do the house cleaning. “Take that, Alora Raine Logan Dawson,” she said as she sank into the rocking chair to catch her breath.

  Trouble was she didn’t feel a damn bit better than she did when she started. A spotless room that took two whole hours to put to rights didn’t erase the feeling that she needed to talk to her sister.

  The phone was in her hand when it rang, and it startled her so badly that she threw it across the room. It bounced in the middle of her bed and landed on the pillows. She left the rocker and snatched it, saw that the call was from Fiona, counted that as an omen, and hit the TALK button.

  “Fiona! I’m so glad you called. How are things in Houston? God, I miss you. Please tell me you are coming home this month. You really need to meet Blake and Toby and see Allie at least once while she is pregnant and I’m about to lay a guilt trip on you so get ready for it—Granny don’t have many good days anymore so you need to come home and see her.” Lizzy rattled on and on.

  “I talked to Allie and she said that she hired a crew to get your roof done and Herman’s barn built. Okay, okay! Mama is sending plane tickets and has rented a car for me so I’ll be there. But it’ll only be from Friday evening until Sunday. I can’t be away from work any longer than that and I miss you, too. Now tell me what else is going on? I hear you’ve got kittens and one is named for me.”

  “Yes, four of them. Their mama is Stormy and the babies are Raylan, Duke, and Hoss, and the one little black lady is Fefe. She’s my favorite because she’s so sassy. But I’ve got a big problem and Mama and Allie are too close…” She paused.

  “Toby Dawson,” Fiona said.

  “What did Allie tell you?”

  “Just that you liked him a lot and that she discouraged you and I should do the same if you brought up the subject,” Fiona answered. “How bad is it?”

  Lizzy sat down on the edge of the bed, then remembered how sweaty she was and moved to the rocking chair. “I cleaned my room and it’s spotless. Clothes hung up. No dust, not even on the window blinds, and shoes are in neat rows. Does that tell you anything?”

  “Holy hell! What have you done that warranted that punishment?”

  “Are you sitting down and how much time do you have?”

  “I am now and I don’t have to be at work until three tomorrow,” Fiona said.

  “Okay, here goes.” Lizzy started with that evening when she was watching the store for her mother. Business had been slow at the feed store and Katy had to go to Wichita Falls to sign more papers for Granny’s care, so Lizzy put a sign on the door and went down to the convenience store for the last hour of the workday.

  Toby had come in for a couple of pounds of bologna. Blue, as well as Blake’s dog, Shooter, liked a piece of bologna as a treat in the evenings. One thing led to another and after she locked the store, they wound up on the cot in the back room. Since she had the key to her mother’s store, it was the perfect spot for three weeks of the hottest sex in all of Dry Creek’s history.

  She went on to tell the rest of the story. “And now we’re in this fake relationship. Toby is in it because he wants the people in Dry Creek to see him as a respectable citizen and not the player he is and because Sharlene is stalking him and he gets text messages and probably phone calls from women all the time and he needs a pretend girlfriend. I’m still not totally sure why I’m in it. I’m over Mitch even though some folks don’t think I am. Like I told Toby, one bad apple does not mean we have to throw out the whole crop.”

  “And you’ve gone and fallen for him?” Fiona said.

  “I wouldn’t go that far, but I do like him a lot.”

  “You need a counselor. You’ve been hurt and…”

  Lizzy laughed sarcastically. “Oh, sure. I’ll rush right down to Dr. Know Yourself Better on Main Street in Dry Creek and make an appointment tomorrow morning. And don’t tell me to talk to the preacher. I can’t tell him all this stuff.”

  “Not the preacher. God no! I meant a real licensed counselor like I saw.”

  Suddenly, the line went so quiet that Lizzy held it out to see if she’d lost the connection.

  “When did you see a therapist?” Lizzy asked.

  “I’ll keep your secret if you keep mine,” Fiona said.

  “Deal.”

  “I’ve been divorced for over a year and it was a messy one. I’d signed a pre-nup so all he had to give me was ten thousand dollars. Lawyers’ fees for the divorce cut that down considerably and when I went looking for a job, his firm had blackballed me. I’m working in a little coffee shop. Meet your sister, the barista, who is now Fiona Catherine Logan again,” she said in a rush. “God, that feels good to tell you, but you can’t tell Mama or she will worry. I make enough to get by, but I did lose my car. I’ve got an old pickup truck that manages to get me to work and back to my efficiency apartment, so I’m good. Don’t tell Mama, but I’m so tickled to get that plane ticket and the rental car so I can come see y’all. I’ve been so homesick lately.”

  “Holy shit!”

  Fiona giggled. “Back in the winter you weren’t cussin’. Maybe this Toby is a bad influence on you in more ways than one.”

  “Come home, Fiona. You can put in an office here as a tax consultant and accountant with your education. I can’t believe that you got kicked out of the law firm. You were the best damn accountant they had. Most folks even thought you were a lawyer.” Lizzy shook her head to get rid of the image of her perfect sister pouring coffee for folks.

  It didn’t work.

  Fiona, the smart sister who’d gone to college. Fiona, the neat sister whose room always looked like it came out of a picture book. Fiona, the pretty redhead who had turned the heads of all the cowboys in Dry Creek. The vision of Fiona, wearing an apron and her pretty red hair in a ponytail sticking out the back of a ball cap, wouldn’t go away.

  “I’m okay, Lizzy. For real, I’m okay. It will blow over and everyone will forget and a new firm will come to town and I’ll get a good job again. The counseling helped me tremendously. I wish you could go for a few sessions,” she said.

  “You be my counselor. What should I do first?” Lizzy asked.

  “Face your feelings. Scream. Yell. Cry. Then decide what you want and go get it. I could only afford a few sessions but basically that’s what I got out of it. I wanted to stay here so that’s what I did. I do not ever want to live in Dry Creek again, period, end of story.”

  “I’ve already faced my feelings. What happened with Mitch was as much my fault as his,” Lizzy admitted. “I should’ve broken it off with him long before.”

  “That’s good. I could see that you were changing yourself to meet his standards. I
did the same thing with Paul and when I got tired of being the person he wanted and went back to being myself, he hated the small-town woman he’d married. So he found himself another woman that he should’ve married in the first place,” she answered. “So you really feel like you have closure on the Mitch issue?”

  “Definitely,” Lizzy said firmly. “Do you have that yet with Paul?”

  “I do. Last week he came into the coffee shop and I realized how much better off I am without his egotistical attitude ruling every day of my life,” she said.

  “How long was it until you got to that place?”

  “More than a year.”

  “You always were a slow learner,” Lizzy teased.

  “You are going to see Toby tonight, aren’t you?”

  “What makes you ask that question out of the clear blue sky?” Lizzy asked.

  “All I can say is be careful, sister. Now pinky-swear that you won’t tattle on me.”

  Lizzy held up her smallest finger and crooked it around an imaginary one. “I pinky-swear and cross my heart and all that shit. Love you, Fiona,” Lizzy’s voice squeaked out around the lump in her throat. “And miss you.”

  “Right back atcha.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Toby popped out an old green webbed lawn chair and sat down with Blue right beside him. He rubbed Blue’s ears with one hand and held a glass of sweating iced tea in the other. His phone rang and he answered it after he’d checked the picture to be sure it wasn’t Sharlene.

  “Hello, darlin’,” he said in his sexiest drawl.

  “Don’t you ‘hello, darlin’’ me, Toby Dawson. You promised you’d call and it’s been two months. I’ve sent you dozens of texts and went back to the bar where we met every weekend. Where in the hell are you?” Teresa asked.

  Thank goodness her name had come on the phone with her picture or he would have had no idea who he was talking to. “Well, sweetheart, it’s like this. I moved out of the area. Bought a little chunk of land and haven’t had time to go back to our favorite bar. But I might come home for a visit in a few weeks, so don’t give up on me.”

  “Never.” She giggled. “The sex was that good but so was the breakfast afterwards.”

  “Well, I’m right glad that you have such good memories.” He said the right words, but his heart wasn’t in it. He would have rather been bantering with Lizzy. “Got to go, but you keep a watch out for me and we might have another weekend like the last one.”

  Blue’s tail thumped against the ground and a coyote howled in the distance. The dog backed his ears and growled down deep in his throat, warning those varmints to keep their distance.

  Toby made up his mind that the next day he would buy a donkey. A pack of coyotes could bring down a heifer. One or two could drag off a newborn calf. He should have brought his old donkey, Lucifer, with him to the Lucky Penny, but Toby couldn’t bear to take him away from his surroundings. Even with his advanced age, Lucifer could stomp a coyote to death if he thought for one second the varmint was coming after a calf in his pasture.

  Toby set the tea down on the ground and started walking slowly, thinking about all the changes he wanted to make to the place, the cattle he planned to breed and raise there, and the future for him, his cousin, and his brother. He came to the fence separating the Lucky Penny from the property on Audrey’s Place and sat down on a flat rock. Blue plopped down on the ground and tucked his nose under his paw. The high wind that had accompanied the tornado had blown some of the petals from the red roses from the tangled mass on the barbed wire. But there were enough blossoms left to permeate the air with their scent.

  All thoughts of a donkey vanished. The roses reminded him of Lizzy. She was beautiful and yet tough enough to endure a tornado, just like those beautiful roses. His eyes shifted to all the wildflowers dotting the distance from him to the fence, and that made him think of the fierceness of her feelings for her family and loved ones. Wind, rain, hot broiling sun, or drought couldn’t kill out those wildflowers any more than anything could ever get between Lizzy and someone that she truly loved.

  Lizzy paced the floor after she finished talking to Fiona. The room got smaller and smaller and the walls began to move toward the center. She jerked on her work boots and started outside, meeting her mother halfway down the stairs.

  “Where are you off to?” Katy asked.

  “I can’t remember if I fed Stormy, so I’m going to take a drive, feed the cat, and clear my head,” she answered.

  “Got something stuck in there like Toby Dawson?” Katy asked.

  One of Lizzy’s shoulders lifted in a shrug. “Maybe so.”

  Katy patted her on the shoulder. “Pet Stormy for me. She’s a good cat. Now that your grandmother isn’t living here we could bring her home if you want. She was so allergic to anything that had to do with cats and she didn’t like dogs, so you kids couldn’t have pets in the house.”

  “If she doesn’t adapt to the store we will.” She had to get out of the house, away from the confinement so she could think. Once she was outside in the fresh air with no walls around her, she took a deep breath and sat down on the swing. A coyote howled off to the south and another one answered from somewhere over near the old well on the other side of the Lucky Penny. Hopefully, they weren’t planning to meet in the middle and have one of Toby’s new calves for supper that night.

  He needed a couple of donkeys to keep the cattle safe. Coyotes and wild animals had ruled the Lucky Penny for years. They had no idea that whatever was on the ranch wasn’t fair game. But a donkey or a couple of them would keep the coyotes at bay for sure. She should tell him tonight before he lost a baby calf.

  She popped up off the swing with a purpose and jogged out across the yard, jumped the rail fence by putting a hand on the top rail and bailing over it like a kid, and then slowed her pace to a fast walk toward the fence separating the two places.

  The waning moon gave enough light that she could see well enough without a flashlight. Good thing since she’d left her purse sitting on the swing and the tiny light attached to her key chain was the only one she owned. The coyote sounded closer that time so she hurried.

  “You cannot pull a donkey out of thin air just by putting some extra giddy-up in your step. Blue won’t let a coyote get a calf tonight and neither will Shooter.” She fussed out loud.

  “No they won’t,” Toby said from the other side of the fence.

  Her hand flew to her chest and her lungs deflated. It took a full five seconds before she remembered to inhale and when she did, all she could smell was roses. “Dammit! You startled me so bad my heart nearly stopped.”

  “Maybe it was trying to pull a donkey out of thin air,” Toby teased.

  “What are you doing over there anyway?” She leaned on a crooked wooden fence post.

  “Thinkin’ about asking Herman or Deke where I could buy a couple of donkeys to keep those pesky coyotes away from my cattle,” he answered.

  She sat down on the green grass. “Herman has donkeys for sale sometimes. When he or his kids get too many they sell a few off. You’d have to ask him, but if he’s not getting rid of any, then Deke will know someone. The coyotes aren’t the only predators on your ranch, Toby. We’ve seen bobcats although I don’t think they’d bother your cattle but the mountain lions might.”

  “Maybe I’d better buy more than two then,” he said. “I’m glad you thought of donkeys when you heard the coyotes singing tonight, Lizzy. I wanted to talk to you but I didn’t have the courage to climb over this fence and knock on your door.”

  “Why?” Lizzy asked. Less than a foot of space and a barbed wire fence separated them but with the fence between them it seemed like a mile.

  “It involves a whole new scene for me. I don’t know how to date so I’m not sure how to go about any of this,” he said.

  Her chest tightened. “You’ve been doing a pretty good job of practicin’.”

  Was he about to tell her that he’d found a woman he wanted t
o see and that this artificial thing between them was over? Bad timing was a bigger bitch than karma.

  “Ah, that was nothing but showin’ off. It’s real dating that scares the bejesus right out of me. Never was any good at it,” he admitted.

  “Bullshit!” Lizzy said. “You are a player. You know all the moves.”

  “Yes, I am. Yes, I do. But that’s the game of take a woman home, take her to bed, feed her breakfast, kiss her good-bye, and start a new game the next week. Dating and getting to really know a woman is a different game. Kind of like the difference in Monopoly and Texas Hold ’Em.”

  “You mean one is exciting and the other is boring. I wouldn’t want to be the Monopoly lady then,” she said.

  “Nothing boring about you, Lizzy Logan,” he said, and chuckled. “Will you go on a date with me Friday night? A real date, not a pretend one? I’ll probably be so clumsy that you won’t go out with me a second time, but please say yes.”

  “Where are we going? Bar? Ice cream?”

  “Is that a yes?” He slipped his hand under the barbed wire and laced his fingers with hers.

  “It’s a yes, but I don’t know if I’m ready to tell our relatives that this has turned from fake to real,” she said.

  He squeezed her hand gently. “I agree and don’t expect too much from me here at first. I’m new at this.”

  “This new Lizzy Logan is pretty new at it, too. The old one was busy trying to be something she wasn’t. This new one is going to be herself, so you might not want to ask her out on a second real date,” she said. “Just one thing before we get out the chisel and set this in that rock you are sitting on right now and be honest with me. Is this one of your pickup lines?”

  He shook his head. “No, ma’am. I have not asked a woman on a date since my senior year in high school. I asked Betsy Dulaney to the prom and the night was a disaster. From then on I honed my player skills and to hell with dating.”

  “What changed your mind?” she asked.

  “Promise you won’t laugh,” he whispered.