Cowboy Firefighter Heat

by Kim Redford

  And around and around in his head went the same litany that he’d lived with for months. He needed her, but he didn’t want to need her. He wanted her, but he didn’t want to want her. He loved her, but he didn’t want to love her. Why couldn’t another easier woman do? And he always came back to the same answer that another woman wouldn’t be Fern Bryant…and his heart wanted what his heart wanted, and that was a singer named Fern.

  He stepped into the front bar right behind her. He wouldn’t waste a single moment of time. If there was any way to her heart, it was through music and the dance hall. He needed to get that right, too. He felt a lot of pressure, but at the same time he felt relaxed, like the calm before going into a battle that must be won at all costs.

  She sat down on a stool, then swiveled and smiled at him.

  He felt her smile all the way to his gut, and that’s when he knew he would win somehow…for both of them.

  “It’s going to be so much fun making plans, coming up with agendas, leveraging everything we have here.”

  He didn’t say anything as he sat down on a stool beside her, thinking about how to make it all fun when it felt like a battle.

  “Isn’t it?”

  He took her hand and stroked across her soft palm, feeling their connection as something that would endure through the ages. “We’ll make whatever we do together fun and anything else your heart desires.”

  She clasped his hand, joining them as one.

  “And when we’re done—” He never finished because the front doors were thrown open and crashed into the walls on either side.

  “Fern! I couldn’t wait to see you,” Ivy cried out as she rushed into the bar like a whirlwind, pulling a wheeled suitcase and setting it near a front table.

  “That’s right.” Slade Steele quietly shut the front doors, then set two sacks of food with the Chuckwagon Café logo on the table near the suitcase. “She was hell-bent on getting here fast.”

  Fern leaped off the stool and ran to meet her sister in the middle of the room.

  Craig watched as the sisters embraced with tears of happiness in their eyes. He felt a little tug at his heart, as if he’d lost Fern just as he’d found her. But then he glanced at Slade. The big blond-haired, blue-eyed cowboy looked about like Craig felt, as if he too might lose the love of his life to the longer, stronger love of sisters. But he also knew they wouldn’t come between Fern and Ivy for the world, because they belonged together, too.

  “I hope I’m not interrupting anything,” Ivy said as she stepped back, glancing at Craig.

  “No.” Fern chuckled as she reached up and brushed back a strand of her sister’s thick, russet hair. “The Settelmeyers just left.”

  “You didn’t disrupt their schedule, did you?”

  Fern laughed again. “I’m afraid so, but I bet they get back on it pretty quick.”

  “I hope so. I was three days early putting up Christmas decorations, and you know what?”

  “I can kind of guess.”

  “They took them down, waited three days, and put them back up.”

  Fern laughed harder, and everyone joined her. “That sounds about right. But you’ve got to admit, their system works.”

  “I’m certainly not one to mess with success.”

  “Me either,” Fern said. “They’re getting one of the cabins ready for me to move into this afternoon.”

  Ivy glanced at Craig with a raised eyebrow.

  He just shrugged and shook his head, letting her know it was out of his control.

  Ivy smiled at her sister. “So, did Craig kick you out for snoring so loudly?”

  “Something like that.” Fern returned the smile. “I’m just used to my own space.”

  “I bet Craig was doing the snoring.” Slade nodded in understanding to his friend.

  “We brought you welcome presents.” Ivy quickly pulled the conversation out of the ditch.

  “Really?” Fern clapped her hands together. “What?”

  “Food from the Chuckwagon Café.” Slade pointed at the sacks. “Figured you could use some good vittles.”

  “Oh yes, I’m starved for Chuckwagon food.”

  “I knew you’d send most of your clothes, so I packed you a suitcase full of mine, since we’re the same size,” Ivy said. “If it doesn’t suit, you can always go shopping at Gene’s Shoe Hospital or Morning’s Glory.”

  Fern hugged her sister again. “It’ll all be great. And it’ll save me time. That’s really important about now.”

  “How so?” Slade asked.

  “We’re gearing up to do more with the Hall.”

  “That’s great!” Ivy said. “We made progress, but not nearly enough.”

  “Thank you again for stepping in for me.” Fern took her sister’s hands and squeezed them.

  “Thanks to you for getting me here.” Ivy glanced at Slade. “It’s the best thing that ever happened to me.”

  Slade gave her a big grin. “Best thing that ever happened to me, too.”

  Craig felt their happiness wash over him like a big warm blanket—one he wanted for his very own with Fern in the center of soft fleece. If Ivy and Slade could do it, surely he and Fern could do it as well.

  “Look, we won’t keep you,” Ivy said. “We’re on our way to pick up some feed for the ranch.”

  Fern chuckled, giving her sister a big grin. “Now that’s something I never expected to hear you say.”

  “Feed?” Ivy laughed, too. “But this is special feed for a very special bull.”

  “Fernando?” Fern glanced at Craig. “I heard on the news about him making his way home for Christmas after cattle rustlers nabbed him.”

  “Everybody heard about him,” Slade said. “I didn’t think we’d ever see that Angus again, but my niece, Storm, never gave up hope he’d be here by Christmas.”

  “Fernando was definitely Wildcat Bluff’s Christmas miracle,” Ivy added.

  Fern glanced around the group. “I’m sorry I missed the cattle drive and Fernando’s triumphant return home.”

  “It was really special,” Ivy said. “But you’re back in time to celebrate Wild West Days.”

  “You’ll need to help us make plans.” Slade nodded to punctuate his words. “The Lone Star Saloon is important to the event, but so is Wildcat Hall.”

  “I’m ready to do whatever I can to help,” Fern said.

  “We’re starting to make plans here.” Craig glanced around the group. “Count us in on anything that needs doing in town.”

  “Good.” Slade grasped Ivy’s hand. “We’d better be on our way. Fernando may be tolerant if his special feed is late, but Storm’s another matter.”

  Craig chuckled. “Go ahead and get going. Nobody wants to be on the wrong side of that little girl.”

  “Sure the truth of it,” Slade replied, laughing. “Why don’t y’all come out to the ranch, so Fern can meet Fernando?”

  “I’d love to,” Fern said. “He’s quite the celebrity.”

  “Give us a call and we’ll set it up.” Ivy gave Fern a quick kiss on her cheek. “We’ll have a nice sisterly visit later on. If you need anything, just holler.”

  “Thanks.”

  Craig watched the couple leave, then glanced at Fern. “It’ll be fun to have you both in Wildcat Bluff at the same time.”

  She turned a happy smile on him. “Yeah.”

  “Want to see what they brought you?”

  “Hungry?”

  “I smell something mighty good.” He clasped her hand, squeezed, and kissed the tip of her nose. “Let’s start the day off right.”

  “I thought we already did with the dance.”

  “That was just the beginning.”

  Chapter 7

  Fern stood still a moment, looking at the closed front doors. She felt it. Love between Ivy and Slade
was like a living, breathing, towering blaze. And it hadn’t consumed them. Instead, as a couple, they were stronger…now a powerful force to be reckoned with. She’d never seen her sister so content, so happy, so relaxed. She couldn’t quite understand it. She’d always felt as if she were losing part of herself instead of gaining a supportive partner in a relationship…except with Craig.

  She envied her sister in a way she never had before this moment. Maybe she’d been moving too fast through life, never daring to look back at anything that might be gaining on her, to appreciate what was before her eyes. Could she learn to grasp the present with both hands?

  She glanced at Craig, who sat at the table patiently waiting for her. He gave her a slight smile, as if he knew she was pondering more than the taste of Chuckwagon goodies and was encouraging her to move forward in life. That’s why she’d come home. She was ready.

  She sat down across from him with a smile. “Please tell me those sacks hold barbeque and all the trimmings.”

  “I resisted tearing into them to find out.”

  “Sure smells like the best barbeque in the state.” She opened one sack and pulled out two plastic dinner containers with two small bags of plasticware. She set one of each in front of him and took the others for her.

  He ripped open the last sack and withdrew two small containers. He popped them open. “Best of all worlds. Slade’s award-winning pecan pie.” He pulled out two drinks and pushed one over to her. “Bet it’s sweet tea.”

  “Yum.” She took a sip, nodded in agreement, and opened the top of her container. “Looks like barbeque brisket sandwich with potato salad, coleslaw, and fried okra.”

  “Dig in.” Craig took a big bite of his sandwich, then watched her with a happy light in his gaze.

  She followed his example, closing her eyes in ecstasy at the taste of tender, savory meat slathered in the café’s special barbeque sauce.

  “Good?”

  “Oh yeah.” She licked her lips, moaning in deep appreciation.

  “If you keep making those sounds, I’ll be over this table and licking you for dessert.”

  “Did I make a mess?” She patted her mouth with her napkin, even as she saw he was teasing but ready to put his words into action. “What about Slade’s pie?” she teased back.

  “You’re a whole lot sweeter.”

  “Not tart?”

  “Not even close.”

  “I bet I could be—”

  “A tart?” He grinned, revealing white teeth against tan skin.

  “That’s not what—”

  “I wouldn’t complain.”

  She rolled her eyes at him before picking up her fork and putting potato salad into her mouth so she wouldn’t be tempted to pursue his line of thought. Truth of the matter, he was tempting her in lots of ways she’d vowed to put behind her. And yet, this was Craig with that old, familiar tug at her senses.

  “I pushed, didn’t I?”

  She nodded, taking another bite of barbeque, but it didn’t taste quite as good as before his words.

  “You know what you do to me.” He sipped tea. “Can’t I tease you at all?”

  “It’s not that.”

  “If we can’t tease or enjoy each other, how are we going to get through this partnership?”

  “It’s just—”

  “No, it’s not just you or me. It’s Wildcat Hall. It’s Wild West Days. It’s all the people who depend on what only we can do for them.”

  She set down her sandwich. “You’re right. But still—”

  “There are no buts here. We either do it right or we don’t do it.”

  “But how?”

  “We play music. Isn’t it the best way to communicate with each other?”

  “That’s the way we speak to the world.”

  “And to each other?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Let’s get guitars. The stage is empty.”

  “Don’t we need to make other plans first?”

  “The schedule is pretty well set up until Wild West Days. That’s only a month away.”

  “What if I want to add talent between now and then?” she asked.

  “If you can do it and want to do it, that’s fine with me. We can work around our schedule to a certain extent. You know how it is.”

  “Yeah.”

  “I left a couple of acoustic guitars in the equipment cabinet in the dance hall. Let’s go for them.” He stood up.

  She hesitated only a moment, and then she joined him. She needed the world of music, where she could lose herself in the comforting strains of songs she knew and even just the touch of guitar strings underneath her fingertips. She abruptly ached with the need to reach out to the comfort and familiarity of her greatest love.

  As they walked into the dance hall, she clicked her fingers in time to the beat of his footsteps, leather against wood, a muted sound that resonated upward into the high ceiling with excellent acoustics. She felt excitement build as she walked toward the stage. Yes, Craig was right. This was where she belonged, where she could make a difference in life. He belonged right here with her. And a thought struck her.

  “Am I taking my life too seriously?”

  “You’ve been pretty serious since you got back.”

  “I used to laugh more.”

  “We both did.”

  “And tease.”

  “That, too.”

  She stopped in the middle of the Hall and turned around in a circle, looking and thinking of audiences. And as if from far, far away, she could almost hear the sound of fiddle, mandolin, and banjo, making the toe-tapping music that resounded down over the years to permeate the honky-tonk and resonate with the present. She could also almost see the long skirts on women as they swirled in colorful arches on the dance floor and the red suspenders holding up dark trousers on men who held big glasses of beer or sarsaparilla. And from outside in the garden, she thought she heard the high-pitched laughter of happy children playing together.

  “What is it?” Craig glanced around as if he was missing something important that she was seeing.

  “I wonder. Maybe I’m not appreciative enough of all the people who come here to share community through music while they get away from the trials and tribulations of everyday life. They bring love to this dance floor for me, you, other performers. And each other.”

  “That’s so true.”

  “I’m grateful for all their love and support. Where would I—or any performer—be without it?”

  “There’d be no dance halls without them.”

  “But we’d all still find a place to gather, wouldn’t we?”

  “That’s true, too. Like I said earlier, you’ve been missed by our local folks, no doubt about it. Are you up to going onstage this weekend?”

  She turned toward him and cocked her head to the side, considering everything she’d experienced in the short time she’d been back. Now was the time to let light, love, laughter enter…and hold on to them because they were what was truly important in a world of shifting sands.

  “Let’s get those guitars.” And she held out her hand to him.

  Chapter 8

  As Fern sat down on the edge of the stage, light from the row of windows filtered onto the dance floor, highlighting the scuffs and scratches from so many years of use by generations of Wildcat Bluff residents that spread across the narrow wood slats. She doubted there’d been much change in all these years except for the overhead lighting and a sprinkler system designed to stop a fire that could quickly get out of hand with so much dry wood.

  She felt a deep connection with all those people who came before her. She wanted to leave her mark here, too. Not in the wood, but in the air. Music bridged the gaps in life, cementing generations together as if no time passed between them. She wanted to leave her contribution here. Wou
ld she? She hoped so. But it was still too soon to tell.

  “Here you go.” Craig handed her an acoustic guitar and sat down beside her with a similar one.

  She looked at what he’d given her and shook her head in dismay. “Where’d you get these?”

  “I think they came with the Hall.”

  “They look rough.” She rubbed fingertips across the wood that was gouged and scarred, with the varnish worn down to the wood near the sound hole.

  “Guess that’s why they were left here.”

  “Well loved by somebody at some point.” She crossed her legs and positioned the waist of the guitar against her thigh. She rested her right elbow on the edge and wrapped the fingers of her left hand around the fingerboard.

  He sat down, crossed an ankle over one knee, and rested the guitar on his leg as he plucked a few strings. “Steel. Guess they wanted a bright and brassy sound.”

  “And guess they weren’t beginners or these would be nylon strings.”

  “Yeah. Easier on the fingers.”

  “Still, I like the mellow sound of nylon.”

  “Give me steel any day.”

  She strummed downward with the fingertips of her right hand. “Ow. That hurts my ears.” She chuckled, shaking her head. “This one’s sadly out of tune.”

  “Bet mine’s the same.” He joined her laughter as he made another discordant sound.

  “What can we expect? Guitars go out of tune so easily. After that plane ride, mine will need some serious adjustment.”

  “At least we can fix these.” He pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and hit the tuning app. While he watched the meter on the screen, he twisted the tuning pegs until his guitar slowly came into tune.

  “Much better.” She smiled as she followed his example, but she couldn’t get her guitar to adjust correctly.

  “What’s the problem?”

  “Not sure.”

  “Let me take a look.” He turned his guitar and set it so the strings rested against his crossed knee, then held out his hand.