Pumpkins, Cowboys & Guitars

by Patti Ann Colt

  “It wasn’t my first consideration. Besides, I drive a fire truck, lady. That’s the ultimate truck. I can guarantee I don’t watch my women crewmates get on that rig. This is just that other thing I drive.” He shut the door and crossed his fingers to save himself from the fib. He loved watching her wiggle into the seat. Of course, he was getting to the point where he liked just watching her breathe. The anticipation to kiss her was killing him.

  When a man got to that point, nothin’ much left to do but fall in love.

  ∞∞∞∞

  Kendra leaned her head back on the headrest and watched headlights pass less frequently as they got closer to her house. Shane drove with a quiet confidence that had made her comfortable from the first.

  They arrived at the restaurant early for their reservations and he’d been nothing but a perfect gentleman. She should know. She’d been on a few dates with all-hands-no-manners types of men.

  Shane wasn’t one of them.

  He’d placed a hand against her waist to lead her to their table. He’d sat on her side of the booth, he said to hear her better. They’d slid into the same easy camaraderie they shared while running. They talked through drinks and all the courses, including a dessert less tasty than hers.

  She didn’t want the evening to end. She hadn’t had a special date like this …ever. She wanted to imprint the memory and live on the after-fumes for years to come. There was only one niggling concern that put a stopper on flinging herself at him. They talked about ideas and interests, food and fires, television and running shoes. They still hadn’t broken into the family and friends and this is my life conversations.

  She knew why she was reluctant, but Shane seemed so open. She wanted to trust and let things take their proper course. But for years she’d believed her father and she’d been wrong. That’s why she’d made herself wait three long weeks before she caved to his date request. She wasn’t playing hard to get. She didn’t think she could handle a relationship right now, not and trust fully.

  She still didn’t think she could do that, but Shane…God, she struggled every day with resisting him. So maybe he deserved some slack, too. Or maybe she should ask.

  “You’re too quiet over there.” His voice in a closed car should be illegal. She would die a happy woman to have him in bed just once and let him talk her to sleep…after other things, of course.

  “I’m thinking.”

  “Thinking what? Do tell.” He turned from the state highway onto Copper Canyon Road, only minutes from her house.

  “Do you have family around here?”

  It was only a second, but he paused. “Yeah. Brother, mother and father. Cousins by the tons, aunts and uncles.”

  “You never mention them.”

  “I’m trying to keep you to myself. Once I say anything, we won’t get a moment’s peace. They’re nosy.” He grimaced.

  She smiled. “Sounds nice.”

  “You don’t have a family?”

  Her stomach seized and she damned herself for starting the conversation. “Parents. No siblings. One uncle.” God, let him not ask more. Her father was on his way to jail. Her uncle was married to NASA. Her mother called her multiple times a day, mostly because she was terrified of the future and continued to deny her problems. Guilt swamped her.

  He turned into her driveway, stopped and put the truck in park. “Sounds lonely.”

  “Or less nosy?”

  He snorted. “There is that.”

  Her porch light was a beacon against the dark night. “It’s late, isn’t it?”

  He checked his watch. “Close to midnight.”

  “The bewitching hour.”

  “Don’t need midnight to do that.”

  “Stop.”

  He reached over the console and took her hand. “Why? It’s truth. But I’m going to walk you to the door, kiss you goodnight, pretend I’m not utterly smitten and go home.”

  She got stuck on the kiss her goodnight. And the heat of his hand.

  He moved his hand back to the steering wheel. “Unless you don’t want me to.”

  “To kiss me goodnight or go home?”

  “Both. Either.”

  She shifted against her seatbelt and thanked God the air conditioning was directed at her. She was hot and edgy and wanted to throw caution to the wind. For that reason, she was going to do something she did not want to do.

  She released her seatbelt and leaned over the console. “Neither. I’m scared to death where that one touch will go.”

  He turned toward her, words on his lips she didn’t want to hear. She lightly kissed him in a completely unsatisfying way and opened her door. “Call me tomorrow. Please.”

  She slid out and shut the door and took a slow walk up the sidewalk to the front door alone. Until she could confess to Shane exactly who she was, she didn’t deserve to be kissed like a sweetheart or made love to like a cherished woman.

  He waited until she turned on the inside lights and gave him a wave from the front door. To his credit, he stayed in the truck and didn’t follow her. Didn’t try to change her mind.

  Gentleman?

  Or angry?

  ∞∞∞ ∞∞∞

  CHAPTER THREE

  Kendra shifted the phone to her other ear and unwrapped the butter to begin the frosting for the birthday cake. She’d been working like a demon all day, worrying over her feelings for Shane from their date two weeks ago, and shoving thoughts about her father down in a deep, deep hole. She had to ignore those emotions or she’d sink and drown. Consequently, she had little tolerance for the third phone call from her mother.

  “Your father needs your support right now. He’s devastated by all these charges and all the nasty things the papers continue to say about him. You have to come home.”

  Kendra selected an orange spatula from her rainbow supply. The exasperation over that broken theme being forced at her again made her crazy nuts. What she wouldn’t give to go back to the days when she and her mother talked about food, clothes, friends, and local issues.

  Instead, they were stuck in a hellish loop. Her father was about to go to trial on securities fraud charges. When it was over, he would go to jail for a long time. She didn’t need a judge and jury to weigh the evidence. She’d listened to the FBI and did the math.

  Red hot anger washed over her, a frequent occurrence during every conversation that she tried mightily to control. She dropped the spatula and swept her hair out of her face. “Mother, Dad swindled people. Lied to friends. Lied to strangers. Lied to the SEC and the FBI. Stole money from investment accounts and lived on that money illegally. He lied to everyone, even us, about what he was doing. Lies. Lies. Lies. You understand that, right?”

  She drew a harsh breath and bit her tongue. She’d promised herself she would never take her anger at the criminal things her father had done out on her mother.

  “Kendra! He needs us right now.” She cringed at her mother’s sobbing tone.

  “Mom…” She stopped and rubbed her eyes. “Mom. I’m sorry, but here is the truth. We can’t talk about this.”

  “I need someone to talk to, Kendra.” The sniffling followed, the constant tears every time they talked.

  She shifted her cell phone to the other ear and dropped all pretext of trying to mix the icing. “I can’t help you there, Mom. Maybe a professional therapist would be better. I don’t understand why you haven’t left him.”

  “I promised for better or worse. That isn’t dictated by the headlines.”

  “I don’t think the headlines are driving this, Mom. The FBI…”

  “Don’t talk to me about those people. They are wrong. They have to be wrong.” Her mother’s strident voice was rapidly converging with hysterics. “He doesn’t understand why you moved so far away, why you won’t talk to him.”

  Kendra bit her lip against a sarcastic reply. An overwhelming tiredness forced her to sit on her stool and lean on the counter. “He knows, Mom. I told him in specific, descriptive terms.”
>
  The moment the FBI rang the doorbell of their million dollar mansion, confiscated every asset including cars, jewelry and family heirlooms, and froze all her father’s bank accounts, she’d shattered. She’d walked around in a state of disbelief for two months, reading every account in the papers of how her father had bilked hundreds of people out of their life savings.

  She’d tried to corner him to talk and he’d avoided her, refused to answer her questions. The more she’d stayed in that house and realized how many things –her things – may have been bought with stolen money, the sicker and more furious she’d been.

  Thank God, after months of questioning, the FBI believed she had known nothing about what he was doing or she would have gone down with him. When they’d cleared her and part of her savings, she’d put her finger on a map and come up with Copper Canyon. She’d rented a trailer, loaded her clothes and kitchen equipment and left. Maybe she should have moved to Alaska, but she was Texan through and through and refused to give up where her heart belonged. She’d changed the name of her baking blog, though, no longer willing to use the Dawson Cakes name. Hence, Getaway Cakes was born. She fought off every day the desire to change her last name, too. She wanted nothing, nothing, nothing to do with her father ever again.

  “Dear, I’d wish you’d be more forgiving. Wait until the trial and all the facts come out. Maybe they’ll be lenient.” Her mother’s attempt at bravery was so hopefully pathetic, Kendra had to clench her teeth.

  “I wouldn’t count on that, Mom. I hate bursting your bubble, but he’s guilty. They aren’t going to slap his hands and let him walk away. I wish you’d understand that.” Her Mom was silent for so long she thought maybe they’d lost connection.

  She pulled the phone from her ear to look. Nope. Still connected. Another sniffle answered the technology question.

  Kendra gripped the counter, balancing her body while her emotions ran amok. God, she needed Shane. She needed a conversation that didn’t start and end with all this mess. But even with him, the air hummed with tension. They’d gone back to their running pattern – meeting every day when Shane wasn’t working. “Dates” since she’d walked away from her goodnight kiss had consisted of two movies, a visit to the Kimball Art Museum, and a Ranger’s baseball game. Each kept to their side of the personal boundary.

  She still hadn’t decided whether he was being a gentleman or what? Just what was he gaining from this? Was he waiting for some signal from her? What exactly was the signal she was supposed to give him? Grab his hand on a run? Jump him naked? What? Dammit. She couldn’t figure that out either and was angry at herself for not going into his arms in the first place. Now that would have been a memory.

  “How could he do this to us?” Her mother’s shaky voice clutched at her heart.

  “I don’t know, Mom. I don’t think he thought about us.” She had to tell Shane about her father. Had to see what he said. See if he still wanted her after he knew. She was scared to death she’d lose him. That hurt worse than anything her father had done.

  Except the summer heat was continuing with no break in sight, and the drought was causing an emergency situation. Shane was working grass fire after grass fire with no time to spend with her. So the seeing him was tentative and that drove her crazy nuts, too. She worried about his safety, worried about his reaction, worried about her feelings being too deep and seriously scary.

  “I thought he loved us.”

  “Maybe he does, in his own way, Mom. Doesn’t change what he did.” She wished she didn’t have to be so pragmatic and could tell her mother what she wanted to hear. But she wasn’t in charge of her mother’s destiny. Couldn’t make those choices.

  “I know, dear.”

  “Are you all right for money?” Not that she had any to send. Her business was barely paying the rent and utilities on the house. Her one credit card was close to maxed out from supplies and if she didn’t get some major break soon, she was going to have to find other work. She’d made her peace with living on a shoe-string, though. The day-to-day act of it soothed some of her ragged emotions and served as penance. She may not have known what her father was doing, but that didn’t stop the guilt of knowing that all those years she’d lived on the tears of someone else’s financial losses.

  Georgia Dawson cleared her throat on another sob. “Yes, dear. Benton said we could stay with him as long as we need to. Even after the trial, if I have to.” Thank God for Benton. Her mom’s brother was divorced. He had a big house and no life outside dreaming of the things man could do in space. And he’d never invested money with her father. “We’re comfortable. Do you need anything? Benton could send money.”

  “No, Mom. I’m fine. I’m taking care of myself.” She made herself get up and get some juice from the refrigerator. She had this birthday cake to finish and then a wedding cake to make, and a load of desserts for a business luncheon. Her life was a wreck and her emotions volatile, but she could still bake up a storm. It was damn pitiful solace.

  “Please dear, call me later. You have no idea how hard it is to have your child so far away when you need her the most.”

  Kendra put the skids on taking to heart her mother’s despair. “I’ll try, Mother. Goodbye.”

  She dropped her cellphone on the counter and stared at her trembling hands. Not bloody, but by God if she got ripped any more apart by this whole thing, she’d bleed out and need to call 911.

  She wanted to staunch the bleeding herself, but the task was beyond her capabilities. She hated and couldn’t forgive. Her anger would catch her unaware and reduce her to a mass of anxiety and screaming frustration. Those emotions rolled out of control more and more. The only things that kept her sane were her baking, her single-minded focus on the success of her business, and Shane.

  Would he walk away when he found out?

  ∞∞∞∞

  Shane struggled against stiffness in his shoulders and slowed down a bit. He shouldn’t be driving. If he’d gone home, he’d be there by now. But he had to see Kendra. He’d been letting her keep her distance, sure that if he was patient, she’d eventually turn to him.

  But so far that hadn’t happened.

  He was finished.

  Done.

  Not waiting anymore.

  He’d been on a few fires since beginning as a volunteer eight years ago out of high school. The last two years working full-time had only increased his fire experience. Today’s fire was different. He rubbed his chest, trying to press out the emotion burning there like dry ice.

  More than half the acreage of the Hardy Ranch had been destroyed along with two barns. The land was going to be scarred for years to come. His brother’s girlfriend lived next door to that family. She’d lost her house and the barn that had been in the family for generations.

  And his stupid brother had decided that a couple of horses were worth his damn hide.

  Jess had almost gotten trapped in the collapsing inferno trying to rescue them. Next time he saw his stupid, still-breathing brother, he was going to kick his ass.

  He slowed to pass a garbage truck. Another wave of exhaustion washed over him and he straightened in his seat. He wasn’t fading into sleep until he could hold Kendra.

  He’d fought the fires all night and into today. Middle of the afternoon, physical and mental exhaustion dogged his every breath. The bright sun was giving him a headache, even with his sunglasses, and it was hotter than hell. Again. Guess that was why the demons were striking him, surging from every ignored corner of his brain. He’d made a mistake once – in his arrogance, his surety of his skill – and someone else had paid for it. In times like this – which he avoided as much as he could – the hurt rose up, the regret, the frustration at who he’d been and he could barely live with himself.

  Truth was he hadn’t pushed Kendra because he didn’t deserve her. He wanted her – would do anything to keep her, even if it was only as a friend. But what he really wanted he was afraid to push for because karma was a bitch. He figure
d his was messed two sides to eternity.

  He pulled into her driveway and put his truck in park before he dozed off or hit something with his inattention.

  “Should have stopped at home and taken a shower. You smell, O’Hare.” He was afraid to look in the mirror. He probably looked like a raccoon.

  He opened his door, stepped out, and staggered. His legs screamed at him with exhaustion. “Just a few feet.” He counted the steps in his head to the front porch.

  She didn’t come to door right away when he knocked, which meant she was in the kitchen in the middle of something.

  He twisted the knob and found it unlocked. Darn woman! He wished she wouldn’t do that. He worried. The sheriff was a long ways away in case of trouble.

  He shut the door behind him and walked slowly down the hall. “Kendra?”

  “Shane! Shane, is that you?” She rushed from the kitchen, wiping her hands on a towel, a smile on her face that made the demons scatter. “What are you…what happened? Are you all right?” She rushed to him, her hands moved over him. Her touch set off tiny electric shocks along his skin.

  He closed his eyes and groaned. “I’m exhausted. Bad fire. Needed to see you.” He trapped her hands between his and soaked up the softness.

  “Shane, come lie down.”

  “I’m filthy. I needed you for a minute. Then I’m going home to sleep.”

  “You aren’t driving, Shane. You’re already asleep standing here.”

  “Not yet. I have to do this first.” He bent his head and took her lips, sliding his against hers in a long anticipated learning of her mouth.

  He was sure she was going to push him away.

  She didn’t.

  Her mouth softened against his, her lips moved with his. Everything inside him seized. He wrapped his arms around her and lifted. His back complained, his legs stiffened, but he didn’t care. She smelled of citrus and cinnamon. He drew the scent into his lungs like oxygen to a suffocating man.

  She tasted like chocolate and honey and caramel. Her tongue touched his and his pulse rocketed. He couldn’t control his breathing and passing out was a definite possibility. Euphoria rose like watching a thousand colorful helium balloons released into the wind. He kept her molded to him with one shaky arm and lifted a hand to her face. “God, Blondie.”