“You’re shittin’ me,” Colton said. “They like a nanny. I thought they lived to make a nanny miserable, so you’d fire her.”
“Ahhh, they want a mama, not a nanny,” Greg said. “Gabby told me that Annie Rose is not a nanny but she’s their new mama and that they found her on your porch in a wedding dress on their birthday last week. Sorry we missed all the fun, but Emily and I were in Dallas for the weekend.”
“Wedding dress?” Lucas’s eyebrows shot up.
“So you got a nanny and they got a mama and they are being good? Don’t tell me there’s no more miracles in the world,” Colton said.
The words were barely out of his mouth when Natalie rang the dinner bell and asked Henry, Lucas’s grandfather, to say grace.
Henry removed his hat and waited for the noise to die down before he bowed his head. “Dear Lord, thank you for this beautiful day for our picnic. It’s good to gather with friends who raise cattle and ranch like we all do. Lord, we’re glad that we’ve got friends when the big corporations are looking to take over the little guys’ ranches. And here on our ranch we’re right glad that we’re seeing the next generation coming on. We’re thankful for Josh and for the prospect of new baby girls. Bless this food and the hands that fixed it all up for us. Amen.”
He settled his hat back on his head and said, “Now let’s eat before the food gets cold and the women get mad at me for prayin’ too long.”
Mason hadn’t made a step toward the food table when movement over to his left took his attention. Before he could even get turned to look that way, Annie Rose ran past him in a flash of bright colors and flowing blond hair. Dinah was right behind her with Frank coming in a close third. He dropped his beer and beat all of them to the dog pile of kids on Kenna’s blanket.
Frank got ahold of Kenna, but she managed to kick him in the shins before he could drag her backwards and then she was right in the middle of the fight again. He went after her while Dinah tried to dig her way through little girls to get her squealing red-haired son out of the swinging fists, but she wasn’t having much luck.
Annie Rose finally got a firm grip on Lily’s ear and one on Gabby’s. She brought them up, but it wasn’t easy because they kept kicking and screaming that they were going to pull every one of the hairs off his head and then they were going to put soap in his mouth.
Mason wondered what in the hell Damian said that was so vile that Lily, of all people, would put soap in his mouth. He waded into the melee and looped an arm around Gabby’s waist and one around Lily’s, brought them up to waist level like two fighting roosters, and whispered loudly, “That is enough. You are ruining Annie Rose’s first time to meet all these people. And you gave me your word you would be good.”
Kenna had a firm hold on Damian’s hair and it took every bit of Frank’s power to pull her free. Damian sat up, digging at his streaming eyes and bawling like a lost calf.
“They attacked me. I sat down on their quilt, and they started beating me up,” he sobbed.
Dinah wrapped her arms around him and shot daggers at the three girls. By that time, Doc Emerson had joined the adults around the quilt and Frank set Kenna down. Mason thought it was safe enough that he followed Doc’s lead and put his girls’ feet on the ground.
Kenna narrowed her eyes and in an instant was on top of Damian again, knocking Dinah backwards in the process. “You’re a lyin’ sumbitch, Damian Miller. We didn’t do nothing, but if you’re going to accuse us, then we’ll beat the shit out of you and take our punishment for doing it.”
Doc grabbed Kenna’s arm and jerked her backwards. “That’s enough fightin’ and enough cussin’ for one day.”
Kenna broke free again, and all three girls piled on Damian. Dinah’s hands went to her hips and she yelled at Frank.
“Can’t you big men do anything? They’re going to kill my son. They’re demons, every one of them,” she screamed.
Annie Rose let out a shrill whistle and everything went dead still and quiet. Damian ran to his father and hid behind his skinny legs. Lily and Gabby clenched their fists, stood up, and glared at him. Kenna crossed her arms over her chest.
“Grandpa, he called their Mama-Nanny a slut. He said he saw her and Mason up in the hayloft kissing, and she wasn’t a nanny, she was a slut,” Kenna tattled.
“Did not!” Damian yelled.
“Did too!” the twins said in unison.
“Where did you hear such language?” Frank asked.
“Mama said it last night. She said that Mason was bringing his slut to the picnic today and that he was lyin’ about her being a nanny, that she was his slut and that’s something real bad,” Damian whined.
Annie Rose burst into laughter that echoed off the mesquite bushes and came back around like a boomerang. The folks in the yard didn’t pay a bit of attention to what was going on out near the parked vehicles. Evidently fights among a bunch of kids occurred often.
Mason finally gave way and guffawed with her.
Doc Emerson shook his head. “Funny how amnesia works. You are remembering something, aren’t you?”
“Yes, Doc, I’ve remembered almost everything, but that’s not why I’m laughing.” She bent forward and dried her eyes on her dress tail. “I was wondering if every woman who kisses a man is a slut. If so, there are probably a whole lot of them here today.”
Dinah stuck her nose in the air, grabbed her son by the arm, and pulled him toward the truck. “Come on, Frank. We’re going home. I don’t have to stay here and be insulted like this.”
“No one insulted you. You insulted Annie Rose,” Doc said.
“I’m going home and you are coming with me, Frank.”
Frank shrugged. “Sorry about all this. You know how she is.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Annie Rose said. “But you two…” Her eyes went to Lily and Gabby.
“He threw the first punch,” Kenna said quickly. “Grandpa, you always told me that I can’t start a fight, but if someone else does then I can whip the shit out of them.”
Doc pushed his glasses back up on his nose. “Guess I did say them exact words, but you aren’t supposed to repeat what I say, Kenna.”
“He hit Kenna and we had to help her,” Lily said.
“And then he kicked Lily and said she was a slut too. What is a slut, Mama-Nanny?” Gabby asked. “Is that like a hooker?”
“Yes, it is,” Annie Rose answered.
“Well, then I’m not sorry. If I get punished then it’ll be worth every bit of it. He’s a lyin’ little sumbitch. I’m not a hooker. I’m a country star,” Lily said stoically.
“Let’s go have some dinner, and there will be no more fighting today. If someone says something you don’t like, you come tell me,” Mason said. Holly would like it that Annie Rose laughed about the whole thing and made Dinah so mad that she left. Holly never did like that woman.
“Yes, ma’am. I’m sorry I cussed. Now I’m hungry. Come on, Kenna, let’s go get some ribs,” Lily said.
Off they went. Three little girls with hair ribbons all tangled up in their hair, dresses wrinkled, and grass stains on their elbows and knees.
Doc Emerson patted Annie Rose on the shoulder. “Don’t worry about it, honey. If the Harper kids and my granddaughter don’t get into trouble at least once at any gathering, the folks would think the kids were terminally ill. Have you begun remembering how and why you got on that porch last week?”
“Yes, sir. Most of it is clear as a bell now,” she said.
“That’s good.”
He ambled off toward the food tables, leaving Annie Rose and Mason alone under the shade tree with a rumpled quilt at their feet.
“Why did you laugh?” Mason asked.
“It was funny as hell,” she whispered. “I’ve never had anyone take up for my honor like that before.”
“It’s my biggest fe
ar that one of the girls will grow up and date him. I probably should go on and wring his neck now. Save everyone a lot of trouble,” Mason growled.
“He was only repeating what he heard,” Annie Rose said.
“His mama’s sorry neck should be wrung too,” Mason said as he tucked her small hand into his.
“My mama said the more you stir a pile of cow shit, the worse it smells. I knew Dinah wasn’t going to be my friend from the first time she talked to me, so it’s no big loss. It’s her privilege to say or think whatever she wants. It’s mine to ignore her. But I do like Natalie. Now let’s go have some dinner. If we don’t hurry, those three girls are liable to eat all the ribs.”
Chapter 9
Annie Rose was so proud of her girls that morning that her heart swelled with pride. They didn’t do anything spectacular, like sing for the whole church, but Lily and Gabby were good. They sat there like little angels, one on either side of Annie Rose through the whole service. Their singing was lovely. They bowed their heads for prayers and didn’t even fidget. They listened to the sermon, which was more than Annie Rose did. She was almighty glad that a child separated her from Mason. If she was plastered up against Mason, keeping her X-rated thoughts from setting the church on fire would have been impossible.
Mason’s eyes never left the podium, but he stretched, slung his arm around Gabby, and his fingertips brushed against Annie Rose’s bare arm. She wished again for one of those old-fashioned cardboard fans. The air-conditioning in the church couldn’t keep up with the heat flowing from his hand through her body.
The preacher finally wound down his sermon. From the bits and pieces that Annie Rose caught in her futile attempt to keep her eyes and mind off Mason, she thought that he’d sermonized about not casting stones at glass houses. She wondered if Dinah had a big rock in her fancy purse, hoping for the opportunity to throw it at Annie Rose.
The closing amen was finally said. The noise level in the little country church went from an occasional muffled cough to rock-concert loud in seconds. The girls skipped off to talk to Kenna. Annie Rose quickly scanned the church to see exactly where Damian was. She breathed a sigh of relief when she finally located him leaving with his parents.
Mason introduced her to the few people she hadn’t met either at the birthday party or the ranch party the day before. She smiled, shook hands, greeted each one, and still kept one wary eye on those three girls over beside the piano. The glitter in their eyes when they came running with Kenna in the lead said they were planning something.
“Daddy, please, please can we go home with Kenna? Doc says it’s all right with him and Miz Doc and we need to go practice our band stuff and…”
Gabby picked up when Lily stopped to catch her breath. “And Doc says he’ll take us to the Pizza Hut to eat, and we can play and sing after that.”
Doc Emerson laid a hand on Mason’s shoulder. “We’d love to have the twins for the rest of the day. Kenna gets lonely with us old far…” He chuckled and didn’t finish the word. “We’ll have them home in time for bed. I thought we’d take them to that new Disney movie playing up in Sherman after they get their band practice done. It’s a late-afternoon matinee, and afterwards we’ll have a KFC picnic at the park.”
“If you are sure,” Mason said.
“I’ve got your cell phone number if there’s a problem, and I am a doctor.” He chuckled again.
Mason clapped a hand on his shoulder. “I trust you, Doc. But after an afternoon with all three of those girls, you might need to call a doctor for yourself.”
“If it gets too bad, I’ll take a nap and trust the wife to hold down the fort,” Doc said.
Kenna grabbed Lily’s hand with her right one and Gabby’s with her left and off they went in a run down the aisle next to the wall. After only a week, Annie Rose could read their little minds. If they could get to Doc’s van and close the doors, then the adults wouldn’t change their minds.
Then it hit her!
She and Mason would be alone for the whole afternoon and evening.
***
Mason picked up Annie Rose’s hand and looped it through his crooked arm. “Guess that means we get to have dinner wherever we want and not at McDonald’s today. What’s your fancy?”
“We could go home and I could cook,” she said.
He took a couple of steps forward, following the crowd toward the door where the preacher shook hands with everyone as they left. “I love your cooking, but the Bible says that I’m supposed to take you out to dinner on Sunday.”
Annie Rose’s big blue eyes locked with his and he felt as if he was drowning. “I’m racking my brain to remember a verse that says you should take me out for Sunday dinner.”
“Blessed are they who hunger and thirst after righteousness,” he quipped. “You’ve been to church and I know you are hungry.”
“But the blessing should be for the hunger and thirst, not for fried catfish,” she said.
“All a matter of interpretation. So catfish, huh?” he asked.
“I was making a statement.”
“I like catfish and I know a good place to get it in Denison. Ever heard of Huck’s?”
“As in Finn?” she asked.
“Yes, ma’am. Sound good?”
“Do we eat it floating down the river on a raft?” she asked.
He patted her hand. It was smaller than Holly’s had been, but then Holly had been a tall woman, a basketball player in high school and college and she’d been—he bit the inside of his lip and shook his head. He should not compare Annie Rose and Holly… they were two entirely different women.
“What about a raft?” he asked.
“Can we eat catfish while floating down the Red River on a raft?” she asked.
“No, but we can eat the catfish first and then we’ll float down the river. I’ve got a couple of big tractor-sized inner tubes. Sun is out, and it’s plenty hot,” he said.
“I didn’t bring a bathing suit, but it is tempting. I haven’t done that in years.”
“That’s no excuse.” He hadn’t seen a woman blush that crimson in years and years. “I don’t think there’s a biblical blessing for skinny-dippin’ thoughts, but it sure puts a pretty picture inside my head, especially if we share an inner tube.”
“I was not… well, shit! It’s not right to lie in church, and we aren’t outside yet. I was thinking about skinny-dippin’ since I don’t own a bathing suit, and now you made me use a bad word too.”
He leaned down and whispered in her ear, “And I bet you didn’t listen to the whole sermon either, did you?”
She shook her head. “Did you?”
He grinned. “No, ma’am. My mind was on you.”
***
Just exactly how erotic and exciting had he let his wanderings go? She’d bet that her imagination had been a hell of a lot hotter than his had been. There was no way she looked better than he did in those creased jeans, that crisp plaid shirt, and those polished boots.
“Did you think about a certain hayloft?” he asked.
“Did you?” she asked.
“Guilty as charged.”
“I’d love to float down the river on inner tubes if you’ll let me have ten minutes to find a bathing suit,” she said, trying to banish all crazy thoughts of skinny-dippin’ from her mind.
“Make it the darkest one in the store, and you’ve got it,” he said.
“Why the darkest one in the store? Maybe I want a pure white one.”
“You’ll understand when you see the Red River. It’s not a pretty little bubbling stream of clear water. And pick up a gallon of sunblock while you are in the store, because your fair skin won’t take the afternoon heat.”
Before she could answer, they’d made it to the church doors and the preacher stuck out his hand. “Good mornin’, Miz Annie Rose. We met at the picnic y
esterday. I’m Lucas’s grandpa. I don’t usually preach at this church, but the minister wanted to take his family on a vacation, so I volunteered to help out.”
She pulled her arm free from Mason’s arm and shook hands with him. “It was a lovely picnic.”
“Yes, it was. Did you meet my great-grandson, Josh? He’s the king of the ranch.”
Mason reached for the preacher’s hand when he dropped Annie Rose’s. “Yes, he is, Henry. But when those twin girls come along, he’ll have some competition.”
Henry’s smile erased a multitude of wrinkles. “We’ll spoil them all when they get here. We’re hopin’ for a dozen or more, but don’t tell Natalie. We’re workin’ on easin’ her into the idea.”
Mason let the next people in line move up to shake hands with Henry and he ushered Annie Rose outside with a hand on the small of her back. He opened the truck door for her, reached across her lap and fastened the seat belt, brushed a quick kiss on the tip of her nose, and whistled all the way around the front to the driver’s side.
Floating down the river might not be a real, official, honest-to-God date, but it sure felt like something more than a way to pass off an afternoon with no girls underfoot.
“We’ll go to the house first. I’ll load up the inner tubes and grab a few things. Then we’ll go to Huck’s for the best catfish you’ve ever eaten.” He talked as he backed the truck out of the church parking lot and headed south toward Whitewright. A picture of her in a bathing suit of any kind flashed through his mind and put a big grin on his face.
“And then I can buy a bathing suit and a gallon of sunblock, right?” she asked.
His quick scan up and down her body sent shivers from hair to toenails.
“Maybe only a little bitty bikini and only a small tube of sunblock, then it will take longer for me to smooth it out over all that pretty white skin.” His drawl was just shy of seductive.
“Is that one of your pickup lines?”
How to Marry a Cowboy (Cowboys & Brides) Page 11