She’d be here soon.
When he eyed the spot under a mesquite tree where she always parked, the muscle in his jawline began to throb. Not that he’d started getting up even earlier in the morning because he was eager to see her. Not that he ever listened for her truck when he did chores.
He wasn’t a lovestruck fool for her. He wasn’t.
The sky glowed orange. Soon it would be so hot and humid his shirt and hair would stick to his skin like wet glue. He loved the quiet and the stillness of the ranch, especially at this hour. Just as he hated the bustle and roar of cities. Even Mission Creek, especially on crowded Saturdays, gave him claustrophobia a lot of the time.
A mourning dove cooed. The vivid reds and golds that washed the mesquite branches and wild grapevines dangling outside his window made him think of the highlights that shone in her hair.
Red and yellow kill a fellow. That rule was supposed to apply to snakes. Not to a beautiful woman with red and gold tresses like Frankie.
With a violent twisting motion, he shoved himself out of the red glare. He couldn’t believe she’d been working for him here nearly two weeks.
Vince had called yesterday afternoon. “Matt, you’ve gotta come by the bank, so we can clean up these loose ends.”
Matt had still been talking to Vince when the sheriff’s big Suburban SUV had rolled up his drive and stopped right beside him.
“Think you can keep Lee a little longer?” the sheriff had hollered.
“Jordan, can’t you see, I’ve got my hands full—”
Vince hung up.
The sheriff climbed out of his truck. “Lee’s old man ran off….”
“Why’d you bother to ask me?”
“I knew you’d say yes.”
When the sheriff drove off, Matt heard a sound at his kitchen window, but when he’d looked to see if she was there, the window banged shut.
Matt had gone into the kitchen and found Frankie in an apricot shirt and skintight jeans at the counter stirring a pitcher of lemonade.
Just having a redhead in his kitchen, in jeans like that, in his house, had been a powerful comfort. Even her air of nonchalance and the languid grace of her slim arm stirring the silver ladle through the lemonade had been mesmerizing somehow.
“What are you watching?” she’d whispered.
“What were you watchin’?”
“Nothing much. You…maybe.”
She’d poured him a glass of lemonade, sliding a tall glass purling with condensation across the table. Briefly the tips of their hot fingers had touched and lingered. Only when she’d withdrawn her hand, had he lifted his glass to his mouth. Then he’d drunk two more tall glasses just to make her pour them, not speaking to her, yet feeling so easy with her, no words had been necessary.
“You’re a good man…to keep Lee.”
“Blame it on the sheriff. This whole thing’s his doing.”
“No. It’s yours.”
“Not mine. Yours. I couldn’t have managed him…without your help.”
She’d blushed, as uncomfortable with his praise as he always was with hers. But her butt had looked so good in those tight jeans, he’d lingered in the kitchen just to watch her walk around.
Being with her was the one bright spot in his life. The only difficult part of being so near her was the constant battle to keep his hands off her.
Despite those jeans, somehow he had.
Just thinking about her made him grin. She was hell on wheels.
That first day just to test her, he’d started her off by giving her way more than her share of the dirty work.
After their pancake breakfast, he’d stabbed a pitchfork into thick, dirty straw so hard, the handle had bobbed back and forth. “You probably think you’re too good to muck my stalls.”
“I’ll have you know, I have my own horse—Jezebel.”
“Why’d you pick a raunchy name like that for?”
“Who says I did, cowboy?” With some effort, she’d tugged the pitchfork out of the hay as defiantly as he’d jammed it in there.
“I bet she’s a thoroughbred, too…just like her snippy mistress.”
“Snippy? I’ll show you snippy!” It was her turn to stab filthy straw, and she did it with even more vengeance than he had. “My point, Slave Driver Dixon, is that I muck Jez’s stall out every day—a whole wheelbarrow full.”
“Oh, really?”
Even though she was panting hard, she pitched the hay with more determination than ever. “Then I roll it to Aunt Susie’s garden which is a long way from the barn. I can help deliver calves, too. I can haul feed.”
Feed was a sore point. If the drought persisted, if Vince kept refusing to cut him some slack, he’d have to sell stock no matter how bad the cattle market was. That would be the end for him.
“I can’t afford feed,” he’d admitted aloud before he’d thought.
When she’d turned and caught his frown, he’d refused to look her square in the eyes.
“This ranch has belonged to Dixons for three generations. Not that it’s much…by Lassiter standards.”
Her face had softened. “Oh, dear.”
Without the slightest hesitation, she’d gently leaned the pitchfork against the back wall and tiptoed to stand beside him in the gloom.
“I’m so sorry, Matt.”
He’d turned his face away from her, crossed his arms defensively, and squared his wide shoulders—to shut her out.
When she’d placed a tentative hand lightly on his arm, he’d shaken free and strode several steps closer toward the door. Even so, for just a second or two he’d felt the warm imprint of every single finger through his chambray shirt.
He’d heard her footsteps, felt those warm, light fingers again. “You don’t give up easily.”
“Neither do you,” she said. “Oh, Matt, you’ve done so much with this place, improved the live-stock…the land, too. The way you worked with that tractor last Thursday…plowing all those mesquite roots out—”
“That won’t matter now, will it? Not if your friend Randal has his way!”
Still, her words had brought a strange comfort that he was at a loss to understand. Usually he hated being pitied.
“Uncle Wayne is always talking about what a talented cattle breeder you are. About how you’ve worked so hard, made such a success.”
Her warm fingers and her soft voice that had filled with pride and wonder as she’d praised his accomplishments had warmed him somehow. He’d felt a glow inside that people like her and her uncle admired him. And that had scared him.
“I’m in debt up to my eyeballs, debutante. But you wouldn’t know how that feels, would you? You’ve got money to burn on pretty dresses and deb parties.”
She hadn’t even flinched. “This place was a shambles when BoBo died. You had to pay off his debts. You’ve been going to school.”
“There’s no excuse for failure.”
“Maybe you’re too hard on yourself. My aunt has a saying—”
“Your aunt is the last thing from a real rancher.”
“But she married one, and she’s raised one.”
“Is that what you think you are today—a rancher?” He’d looked away. “Please…”
“She says that life has a way of working out if we try hard enough. Although she does say it doesn’t always work out how we think it should or want it to.”
“What are you really doing here? Why do you keep coming back? You’ve served your time. Your twenty hours were up after the first two days.”
He’d felt remorse when hot color had rushed into her cheeks because of the steel in his voice. Not that he’d apologize.
“Maybe I keep asking myself the same question. You’re not all that much fun, you know. You work from dawn to dark. You’re anti-social….”
She had such beautiful, translucent, soft skin. So soft. His hand had itched to trace its satiny texture. But he’d known that if he’d succumbed, she would have run. Still, for an unending momen
t, he hadn’t been able to tear his eyes from her face.
“I—I told you. I want to be your friend.”
“A friend?” Why did she always have to ruin everything by saying that? The word had mocked the wild heat in his blood as well as the emotional turbulence in his heart. Suddenly he’d wanted her so much, her blushing beauty, her very nearness had been unbearable.
He’d peeled her fingers off his shoulders. “Get back to mucking—debutante.”
“Will do—slave driver.”
Matt stepped over the ledgers scattered all over the floor and fell back into his chair. Absently, he shuffled a month-old, thick stack of bills before he jammed them onto the spindle.
Frankie had stood up to him. He had to give her that. She wasn’t quite the spoiled debutante or the delicate flower he’d imagined her to be. She wasn’t a shallow princess like her high-living, amoral mother, either. She’d helped him deliver a calf in a sweltering barn. She’d ridden fence for him, too. She’d even helped him make repairs. Not content to be his helper and hand him his tools, she’d pounded nails until she’d pulled a muscle in her shoulder. And she was wonderful with Lee, who did most of his chores now without complaint—especially the supper dishes—but only if she asked him.
The transformation in Lee had impressed the hell out of the sheriff.
“You ought to marry her,” Sheriff Jordan had said. “Maybe she’d work the same magic on you. ’Course it’d take her a spell—stubborn as you are.”
“I’m not in her league, now am I?”
“Bed her. Hell, everybody knows she comes over here every damned day.”
“Community service. Debutante stuff.”
“Bull damn corn. Get her pregnant. Then she won’t have a choice. That’s why her mother married her father.”
“That marriage lasted all of six months.”
“Good—I see you’ve thought it through. A six-month marriage to her would bail you out of the mess your father got you in, boy!”
“Get your long nose out of my business, Jordan!”
“You’d better get on the stick, boy. Her aunt’s campaigning mighty hard for Vince. Randal’s got the hots for her, too.”
“I said get.”
His office windows were brilliant oblongs of red light now.
“Time to work, Dixon.”
He knelt, intending to pick up the ledgers and put them back in the desk. But the morning quiet was broken by the roar of a big engine in his drive. He froze.
Something bright and metallic glinted from his window. A truck door slammed. He heard light running footsteps.
Matt dropped the ledger and jumped over the others. Then he raced to the front door to meet Frankie. She waited on the top step, tense and still, and as breathless as he was even though she smiled and pretended not to be.
As always she was as radiant as the new dawn. He banged the door open and stepped out onto his front porch. One glance down at the pink pearly softness of her mouth tightened every muscle in his body. Then the sweet warmth in her eyes made his heart do a somersault. He gripped the doorframe almost painfully and stopped himself from going any nearer.
“If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were glad to see me, cowboy,” she said, her voice fluttery and breathless.
Her face became a blur then, her eyes huge pools of sparkling green. Her hair turned to flame; her skin glowed.
Another pulse-hammering pause while he tried not to look at her.
Impossible. She was so damned beautiful. He bit his lip to keep from saying so. Compliments were way too dangerous.
So, instead he barked, “Who the hell did you ask to escort you to the debutante ball? Vince?”
Where had that come from?
“Better to attack—than to surrender?” Her quick laughter mocked him. “Would you care, cowboy?” She tilted her slim face back as if she thought she had him now.
“Maybe.” He sprang from the door and stomped toward her. His voice was low and savage as he gently grabbed a fistful of hair and drew her slowly into his arms.
No kissing. No touching, Dixon. No thinking about it either.
When he hauled her closer, she didn’t fight him. Instead, her emerald eyes caught fire, and she licked her lips as if deliberately moistening them.
“Do you know what you do to me, Frankie?” he muttered.
“I feel it, too.”
“We’ve spent way too much time alone together lately.”
“That’s the same thing Aunt Susie says.”
“What?”
“Seems Louisa has the whole town talking. You weren’t on the program. Aunt Susie’s mad at Louisa because she told me you were. Aunt Susie’s mad as hops about me coming out here.”
“Because she prefers Vince.”
“How did you guess?”
“She wants you to marry well—same as she married well.” An angry pulse throbbed in Matt’s temple at the thought of Vince Randal.
“Jealous?” She batted her long lashes up at him.
“No!”
She laughed. “You are too!”
“Damn your snippy hide! I’ve no right to be jealous!”
“Save your usual sob story. It’s getting old.”
“Sob story! That stings.”
“My uncle’s on your side,” she said.
“Really?” He grinned at her in spite of himself.
“He says you’re pulling yourself up by the bootstraps. He says you never ask for handouts the way BoBo always did. But Aunt Susie—”
“I don’t give a damn what she thinks.”
“She got really mad when I told her how handsome and determined you are. She said you never smile. I told her you had the most beautiful smile, but I agreed that you do need to smile more often. Like…like you did a while ago.”
He flushed and ran his hand through his hair self-consciously.
“I want her to like you. Right now she thinks you aren’t an integral part of the community.”
“She’s right, you know.”
“But you could change.”
“Frankie—”
“No—you listen. Just listen first. Grandma Ellie, who’s hardly said a word for a month, got this really cool idea. She thought we…I mean Aunt Susie and Uncle Wayne and Grandma Ellie and I could throw a barbecue next week. She got me away from Aunt Susie and said this could be a way to sort of get you in the swim of things.”
Don’t you know me at all? I would hate being with all those debs and rich guys.
He started to protest. Then he clamped his teeth together. Frankie’s eyes sparkled. She sounded so eager.
“Grandma Ellie hasn’t been feeling so good lately, and when she’s like that, we always sort of spoil her until she gets better. So, Uncle Wayne wouldn’t let Aunt Susie argue with her about the barbecue…or even about you when she kept saying you’re nice.”
“I’m really not much of a party person.”
“But Aunt Susie is, don’t you see? So, if you cooperate, you could win her over. I know you could.” Frankie was leaning toward him, smiling her sweet smile, taking his hand in hers.
“I’ve been acting so enthusiastic Aunt Susie’s come around to liking the idea of all the debs and their escorts kicking up their heels on the Lassiter Ranch. And… I—I thought I’d bring you….”
“Me?”
She squeezed his hand. “If you’d come…. After the party gets started and Aunt Susie is having fun. She could get to know you. We could prove to her once and for all that you can be an integral part—”
“Frankie, I don’t know about this.”
Again she pressed his fingers. “You work so hard. You deserve some fun. Oh, Matt, I do wish you’d come…as my escort.” She released his hand and clutched his shirtsleeves. “I’m shy at parties too, same as you are. But if you were there—and…and… For all that Aunt Susie and I are so different, she’s like a mother to me. I’d like her to get to know you better, and to realize—” She hesitated. “To rea
lize how special you are to me.”
Matt swallowed. Would Aunt Susie come to like him? Or to hate him? He said, “It won’t work out the way you want it to.”
“Maybe…maybe it could. Oh, please!”
He regarded her warily, but her shining green eyes soon worked their magic on him. “Oh, all right.”
Her hands fell to her sides and she stood back a few steps from him. “So—the barbecue’s why I can’t stay and work today.”
“What? You’re not leaving….”
She nodded. “I’ve gotta go.”
He stared at her distractedly. “But I thought—”
“I’m afraid I can’t work for the rest of this week. Aunt Susie’s got this super long list of things she wants me to do to organize the event. I have to get some fake silk palms and banana trees from Corpus. And then I have a fitting this morning. But I had to come over and invite you to the barbecue—first thing.”
She took his hand again and pulled him into the darkest shadows of the porch. Then she stretched onto her tiptoes and whispered into his ear in a deep, throaty voice that mocked his. “I’m not done with you either, Matt Dixon.”
“You sure about that?” His own voice was strangely hoarse.
She answered him with a light kiss. He closed his eyes when he felt the fluttery warmth of her lips claim his. Her mouth opened, inviting his tongue. His hands came around her waist to pull her closer. Gently he ran his hands through her curls.
“Francesca. Oh, Frankie. Frankie.” He sucked in a gulp of air and clasped her closer. “I can’t believe this!” He’d waited so long.
“Neither can I.”
“What do you want?” he whispered. “How much? For how long?”
“What about you?”
All he knew was that he had to have her. That he’d take whatever she’d give him…and then he’d let her go when she was ready to move on to some rich guy—even if it was Vince Randal.
“I have nothing to offer a girl like you,” he murmured thickly.
“Then why’d you say you wanted to be my first man?”
“Is that all you want? A thrill or two?”
“What’s the matter with that? That’s what you said you wanted, isn’t it?”
Lone Star Country Club: The Debutantes Page 22