The Cowboy's Mail Order Bride

by Carolyn Brown

  She leaned back and looked up at him. “Do you think everyone thinks that we are falling in love?”

  “I imagine they are.”

  The male singer stepped aside, and a lady in tight-fitting jeans and a red satin shirt took the microphone. She sang a slow Lorrie Morgan song, and Greg brought the dance down to a slow country waltz. The lyrics sunk deep into Emily’s soul, but she didn’t hear them, just felt the spirit of the melody as her heartbeats blended in unison with Greg’s.

  “Please be my real date,” he whispered.

  She barely nodded.

  “Is that a yes?” he asked.

  “Okay, but if Miz Clarice needs me to get her some punch or another shot of bourbon, you’ll have to take the backseat for a little while,” she teased.

  He tipped her chin up with his fist and brushed a sweet kiss across her lips. “That’s just so everyone in this room knows that we are together tonight.”

  “Branding your territory, are you?” she asked.

  He grinned.

  She tiptoed and kissed him long, hard, and passionately. “Now all those hussies staring at your cute little ass will know that you are branded for the night too.”

  “Whew!” The grin widened. “Let’s get out of this place and find a motel room.”

  “I don’t do sex on first dates,” she said. “And besides, two kisses are probably all that Clarice wants to explain for one night.”

  “You really think my ass is cute?” he asked.

  “If I didn’t I wouldn’t have said it,” she answered.

  “Well, darlin’, I think all of you is downright sexy as hell tonight. That dress looks like moving water,” he said.

  She smiled. “Why, Greg, you are romantic at heart, but I bet you say that to all the girls.”

  “Never said it before. Never saw anyone that could take my breath away like you do,” he said.

  ***

  The night was over too soon.

  It lasted until eternity and beyond.

  How both could be the truth was a complete mystery, but that’s the way Emily felt at midnight when the party ended. She drove Clarice home in the van, but she could see the headlights of Greg’s truck in the rearview the whole way home.

  Home?

  When did that happen? Two weeks ago, her ranch out there in west Texas was home. A grown, responsible woman did not make a change in her thinking like that in such a short time. Not even after a Cinderella evening when she had been transformed into the belle of the ball.

  Home?

  Gramps used to say that home was where the heart was. That was scary as hell. Her heart should be out there in the flat country, not in north Texas rolling hills country, tangled up in mesquite and scrub oak.

  “You sure are serious and quiet,” Clarice said.

  “So are you,” Emily said.

  “I was thinking about Marvin. I danced lots of times at Angus parties with my Lester. He was a good dancer and a wonderful man and I adored him. I never got to dance one time with Marvin. Tell me, Emily, did he like to dance?”

  Emily slowed down as she drove through Ravenna. “He loved to dance. He and Nana used to dance around the living room floor, and sometimes he’d dance with me after she was gone.”

  “I suppose it’s come about from reading those letters again, but I wish I’d danced with him, held him, and kissed him like you did Greg tonight. I wish I had that memory, even if it hadn’t worked out and fate declared that I would marry Lester.” She sighed.

  Emily reached across the console and patted Clarice’s hand. “Gramps felt the same way about you. He adored Nana, but his past was unsettled.”

  Clarice leaned over and kissed Emily on the cheek. “Thank you for tonight, Emily. You made my grandson happy, and that made me happy.”

  Emily’s smile lit up the van. “He made me very happy tonight.”

  Clarice got out of the van and made her way up the steps, opened the front door, and disappeared inside the house. Emily drove the van around to the detached garage and parked it. She grabbed her weathered old work coat from the backseat and slipped her arms into it when she got out of the van.

  “That sets off the whole look,” Greg said from the shadows.

  “It’s cold.”

  “Tough as nails on the outside. Soft and gentle on the inside,” he said.

  “You got it, cowboy,” she answered.

  He took a step forward and she did the same. Somehow the distance between them disappeared and she was in his arms. His lips were on hers, his tongue making love to her mouth, and she was floating somewhere between the garage and heaven.

  His hand slipped inside the coat and massaged her bare back as he deepened the kisses even more. She leaned in, giving way to the fire that had been building all evening as they danced. His fingers inched their way down inside the back of her dress.

  “My God,” he groaned.

  “What?”

  “If I’d known you didn’t have anything on under that dress, I would have busted out my zipper. I had to think about cleaning horse stalls to keep from having a problem as it was,” he whispered.

  “This zipper,” she said as she laid a hand just below his belt buckle.

  “I thought you didn’t do sex on first dates,” he said.

  “I’m not totally inflexible, Mr. Adams,” she said.

  “Oh, I bet you are very flexible.”

  “Your truck or the van?”

  His hand cradled her neck as his lips came closer. “Two nice bedrooms in the house.”

  “Not with Clarice and Dotty in listening distance,” she mumbled between scorching hot kisses.

  He scooped her up in his arms and carried her across the garage floor to a door on the other side of his truck. He opened it and she pulled away from his lips.

  “What is this? In a closet? Is it big enough?”

  “Trust me, Emily.”

  He carried her up a flight of narrow stairs to an attic room with a sloped ceiling. A twin-sized bed shoved up against the wall with a small table beside it was the only furniture in the whole room. He laid her down gently on a handmade quilt and stretched out beside her.

  “You feel so good just lyin’ here beside me,” he whispered hoarsely.

  She slipped up a hand in the narrow space between them and shoved his jacket down over his shoulders. He helped her and tossed it across the room, then slowly removed her coat and threw it in the general direction of his jacket.

  A window above the bed made a picture frame for a big lovers’ moon sitting in the middle of twinkling stars on a midnight blue background. The light of the moon sharpened the angles of his face. She reached up and traced his lip line, then his strong jaw.

  “Your touch brings those stars out there into the room with us.” His deep drawl sent warmth through her veins.

  “I know. You do the same to me.”

  “I’ve wanted to touch you all week. Even just your hand or your cheek. Keeping my hands to myself has almost driven me insane.”

  She unfastened his shirt, one button at a time, kissing his muscular chest as she bared it.

  He pulled her even closer and slipped the dress up over her head. “My God, you are beautiful.”

  “I believe that’s a cliché line from an old movie.”

  “I don’t give a damn where it came from, it’s the gospel truth, Emily. You are stunning.” He teased her with strings of kisses starting at her lips and going to that tender part of the neck right below her ear before he moved down to her breasts, her ribs, and her belly button. She trembled and arched toward him when he went even lower.

  “I’m going to catch plumb on fire if you don’t get on with it.”

  “I’m already on fire, and I don’t want to have sex with you, Emily. I want to make love to you,” he said. “Protec
tion is…”

  “I’m on the pill. We don’t need anything else.”

  She pushed the covers back and straddled his waist and unzipped his jeans. “Is this an eight-second bareback bronc ride, or is it an hour-long horse ride up to the cabin and back?”

  “First or second time?”

  She giggled. She had trouble pulling his belt from the loops, so she left the sides hanging as she freed his erection from the tight jeans. “Help me get rid of all this packaging. I want the present, not the jeans it came in. And darlin’, if I’d known that you were commando, we would have snuck out of the dance and locked the bathroom door.”

  “We call it going cowboy, not commando.” He kicked his jeans and boots off in one easy motion.

  “I call it downright damn sexy.”

  “Cold is not my friend.” He chuckled.

  She slipped her warm hand around his erection and said, “This help?”

  He returned the favor, running a hand up her inner thigh until he reached the place that had her wiggling and moaning in less than a minute. “It’s been a while, Emily. Would you be terribly disappointed if the first was a bronc ride and the second was a trip to the cabin?”

  “And the third time can be…” she panted.

  He covered her mouth with his and slid into her with a long, hard thrust. She groaned and worked with him, rocking at the right time to bring them both the most pleasure. He took her to breathtaking heights half a dozen times and then backed off before the thrusts finally became shorter and faster.

  “God, that feels so good. I think this is a trip to the cabin instead of an eight-second ride,” she panted.

  “I never knew anything could feel like this.” His drawl was deep, hoarse, and hungry.

  “Me either,” she moaned.

  “Ready?”

  The moonlight shifted so that she could see his eyes change from sexy to soft and dreamy. She managed to nod, but she didn’t have the breath to answer.

  He slipped his hands under her bottom and with a dozen fast and furious thrusts, he brought her right up to the biggest climax she’d ever known.

  “Wow… all to hell!” The words came out in a high-pitched squeal when she could catch enough breath to force them out of her mouth. She floated toward the window, toward the big lovers’ moon and the stars, and then she fell back to the narrow bed with a thump that knocked the breath out of her all over again.

  Would it be a total sin to stay in the attic and live there forever with him, doing nothing but making love like that until she died? She had never felt such raw passion in her entire life.

  “I’ve never…” he said.

  “Never what?” She inhaled deeply and straightened her legs.

  He pulled the edge of the quilt around them, making a tight-fitting cocoon. She thought that she’d burned up every nerve in her body, but when he kissed her inside that quilt, desire shot through her like white lightning through an IV.

  She buried her face into his neck and whispered, “I still want you.”

  “Good, because it’s a long time until daylight.”

  ***

  Dotty met Clarice in the kitchen the next morning. The coffee was already made and Clarice had turned on the oven for biscuits. She poured two cups and handed one to Dotty.

  “We’d best make a big breakfast. They’ll be starving.”

  “Already planned on it. They came in the back door quiet as mice about an hour ago. She was carrying her dress because I heard him say something about not getting it all dirty. It was well worth the money, wasn’t it?”

  Clarice giggled. “Now, Dotty, you know that dress was payment for a favor.”

  “Yes, and I know that favor was paid back ten years ago and the diamond studs in Emily’s ears are the payment. I was there when Tressa handed them to you and told you how much she appreciated you bankrolling her.”

  Clarice carried her coffee to the kitchen table. “You got the memory of a damned elephant.”

  “Long as I don’t get the elephant’s big nose or big gut to go with it, I ain’t complainin’. Van or truck?”

  “Attic,” Clarice said.

  “Shit! I forgot all about the attic.”

  “Lots of memories up in that attic.”

  Dotty pulled a package of bacon from the fridge. “Want to share?”

  “Now, Dotty, you know I never was one to kiss and tell.”

  “You ain’t no fun at all. Won’t let me read them damned letters and won’t tell me about the attic. Is that pretty log cabin quilt still on the twin-sized bed up there?”

  “How’d you know about that?” Clarice asked.

  “I don’t kiss and tell neither.” Dotty giggled.

  “You didn’t!”

  “I did. Remember, darlin’, I was here in Ravenna a month before I got married. I met you right here on this ranch at a picnic. Johnny was working for Lester’s folks back then.”

  Chapter 15

  Bocephus was curled up on her fancy dress, and Simba was sleeping soundly on her coat when Emily awoke the next morning. She picked up the gray cat first and brushed a couple of hairs from the dress before hanging it inside the special garment bag in her closet.

  “You are a good boy, yes you are. You didn’t even snag my gorgeous dress.” She crooned as she set him on the bathroom vanity and brushed her teeth. He swatted at the water then shook his foot so hard that droplets landed on the front of her faded chambray work shirt.

  “Good boy just ended,” she said. “But if you had to be a bad boy like the singer you were named for, I’m glad it was in the bathroom and not tearing my dress. I had the most amazing night, Bo. We danced and danced and we…” She blushed at the memories.

  Bocephus looked up at her and meowed.

  “I can’t wipe this grin off my face. That should tell you something, but I’m not telling you what happened. You are much too young to hear such things said out loud.”

  The kitten flopped back like a baby when she picked him up, purring and blinking at her as if begging for more of the story. She laid him on the chair and he flipped over, jumped down, and attacked Simba, biting his ears and tail until the yellow kitten woke up.

  It wasn’t until she was getting dressed that she saw the envelope with the scratch marks and frayed edges tucked under her coat on the floor. The smile got bigger when she picked it up and wider yet when she opened it to read one word.

  Amazing.

  She put the letter back into the envelope and pulled open the drawer of her nightstand where she’d stored the other two, and there was the little red velvet box that held Clarice’s diamond studs. Emily touched her ears and groaned as she removed the earrings and put them into the box.

  Dammit it all to hell on a splintery old shovel handle. She had to face Dotty and Clarice that morning, and she had less than two hours of sleep and a grin that she couldn’t erase. What in the hell was she going to do? They’d know the minute they looked at her that she’d had sex. It was written all over her face. She’d hock her pickup truck for a lemon to suck on right then.

  The kittens bounded out of the room the minute the door was opened and chased each other down the stairs, rolling and tumbling from one step to the other. Emily’s feet were like lead. She couldn’t face them and yet she had no choice. It was worse than the time she came home from college after her first experience with sex. She had dreaded facing Gramps, but all he talked about that weekend was the big cattle sale.

  Too bad there wasn’t a cattle sale going on at Lightning Ridge.

  She went straight to the table where Clarice was sitting. “Thank you so much for loaning these to me. Tressa was right. They were the perfect jewelry.”

  “Good morning. Clarice says that the dance was a big success,” Dotty said.

  “Well, look here. The boys are joining us this morning.
Good morning, Bocephus and Simba. I bet Dotty has enough bacon fried up that you could share a piece this morning.”

  “I’m not sure those two get bacon this morning.” Dotty pointed at the refrigerator. “I think they punished you for leaving them last night.”

  Sticky notes had been shredded up as far as two little kittens’ paws could reach. The little rascals had no sense of conscience because Simba crouched like a big yellow lion, wiggled a few times, and made a dive for a flapping note that still hung on to the refrigerator door. He reminded Emily of a squirrel bouncing from one tree limb to the other as he used the sticky notes to claw his way to the cabinet top. He snagged a piece of bacon, landed on his feet when he jumped off, and growled at Bocephus.

  Emily slapped a hand over her mouth. “Oh, no!”

  Clarice reached down and grabbed an end of the bacon and played tug-of-war with the kitten until she’d broken a chunk off. “Now, Bo baby, this is for you. Simba has to learn to share.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Emily said.

  “It’s time to clean them off and start all over anyway,” Dotty said. “But we’ve got to work on training the boys to stay off my cabinet.”

  “Yes, ma’am. I don’t think they’re going to get bacon for a week, and they have to stay in my room for a week too. Come on, boys, you are in big trouble,” Emily agreed.

  “That’s too harsh,” Clarice said. “No bacon tomorrow, but you’ll be punishing me and Dotty if you don’t let them come out and play.”

  “I’m making ham and eggs tomorrow,” Dotty said.

  “Shhh! They don’t know that.” Clarice giggled.

  Max stopped in the middle of the kitchen floor. “Looks like a tornado hit y’all’s refrigerator.”

  “Hurricane Simba and Tornado Bocephus,” Emily said.

  “Give them an extra piece of bacon. They deserve it after demolishing that ugly thing.”