She started to go into the chat room with the next woman, but Bocephus made a running dive for the basket of paper under the desk, reminding her that she had a lot of work to do before the auction on Friday night. She’d already read enough to know that poor old Greg had best put on his tallest boots because he was going to be wading through some serious shit.
***
After supper Greg yawned and declared that Clarice had better give him and the guys more than a week’s notice if the bazaar was going to be held at the ranch every year. “That barn was a complete mess and cleaning it up for a fancy bazaar is a lot different than getting it ready for a cattle sale. I’m tired, so I’m going up to my room and catching up on emails. See y’all tomorrow morning.”
“Don’t forget that tomorrow night we’ve got to be at the church for the reception,” Clarice said. “Y’all knock off work at four. Supper will be an hour early so that Dotty, Emily, and I can get down to the church to help decorate. We’re on the hostess list.”
“You are the hostess, Clarice. I didn’t volunteer. Did you, Dotty?” Emily asked.
“Oh, yeah, I did, and I put your name down too. We are all three hostesses. And Madge and Rose, and about seven or eight others. You might as well learn that business as well as dominoes and ranchin’ and takin’ care of that computer shit,” Dotty said.
Emily grumbled under her breath all the way up the stairs to her bedroom, where she shut the door. Jesus couldn’t even make her smile, so the kittens didn’t have a chance in hell of putting her in a better mood.
She shed her boots and jeans, ran a tub full of water, and sunk down in it. Hostess, her ass! Prissy would be floating in her new bride status, flashing either a gold wedding band or a set of diamonds and gloating. Emily hadn’t even planned on going to the damned old reception and now she was a hostess?
In her fretting she didn’t hear anything until she looked up and there was Greg sitting on the edge of the tub. He leaned forward and kissed her hard on the lips.
His chest was bare, his hair still wet, and his plaid lounging pants rode low on his hips. He wasn’t wearing glasses, and he had a heavy five o’clock shadow.
Bocephus was in one arm and Simba in the other.
“The babies were crying at the door,” he said.
His smile erased all her grumbling. He set the cats on the floor and Bocephus attacked the toilet paper, rolling off two feet before Greg could grab him and put both of them out in the bedroom. He shut the door and picked up the shampoo from the vanity.
“Sit up and lean your head back. I’ll wash your hair,” he said.
“You look like a Greek god,” she whispered.
“Greek gods had blond curly hair.” He filled a plastic glass from the vanity with bathtub water and poured it gently over her hair.
“Mine don’t,” she said.
The cool shampoo sent chill bumps up her naked back, but when his fingers began to work it through her hair, the chill turned hotter’n the devil’s pitchfork.
“I missed you so bad these past two days.”
“Me too,” she whispered.
The kittens set up a howl on the other side of the door, sending one little gray paw and one yellow one under the door to wiggle around and beg for forgiveness. Greg ignored them until he got her hair washed and rinsed then said, “Don’t go away.”
She heard him sweet-talking to the kittens as he put them out on the landing. Then he was back, had lathered up the washcloth, and was running it up her thigh, her stomach, and around her breasts.
“This water is about to start boilin’, and what if…” she whispered.
“Nana and Dotty are in the kitchen making starch for their doodads, and they haven’t climbed the stairs up to this floor in more than a year,” he said.
“They’ve got ears like bats, Greg. They can probably hear us whispering.”
She stood up and he wrapped a towel around her, scooped her up in his arms, and carried her to the recliner. He sat down and she snuggled against his chest. The masculine scent of men’s soap and that smell that belonged solely to Greg Adams stirred desire and lust together.
“We can’t, not in the house,” she said.
He chuckled. “We can sit here with both of us nearly naked, but we can’t have sex?”
Dotty’s voice got louder and louder as she climbed the steps. “Okay, okay, Simba. I’ll take you back up to Emily. I swear you are the biggest crybaby. Bocephus is happy as a lark playing with his toys in the kitchen.”
“I told you,” Emily muttered and jumped up.
She grabbed Greg by the hand and pulled him into the bathroom with her, shutting the door behind them just as Dotty knocked on the door frame.
“Hey, Emily, you in here?” Dotty called out.
“In the tub,” she yelled.
“I brought this whining cat up here. I’ll put him on the recliner and shut your door.”
“Thank you,” Emily yelled.
“I’ll bring Bo up when he gets tired of playing,” Dotty said.
“Just holler and I’ll come get him,” Emily said. “No problem. I don’t mind. More than a year, huh?” she whispered to Greg.
He nuzzled the inside of her neck. “I guess you were right. They do have ears like bats.”
His warm breath shot a stream of scorching fire through her veins.
Emily hopped up on the vanity.
His eyes went all soft and his lips found hers in a kiss that steamed up the whole bathroom. He laid the towel back gently and cupped her bottom in his hands.
They fit perfectly that way, but still, when he slid into her, she gasped. She wrapped her arms tightly around his neck and enjoyed the sensation of a hard surface under her butt and a broad chest against her breasts. It was her first experience with vertical sex, and she floated over the moon.
It ended in a rush with her digging the tips of her fingers into his back and burying her face in his neck. She wrapped her legs firmly around his waist and he carried her to the toilet, put the lid down, and sat down with her in his lap.
“Wow!” he said.
“I know, but I already feel guilty, Greg. We shouldn’t. It’s disrespectful in Clarice’s house,” she whispered.
“Hey, Emily, I’m putting Bocephus in here too and shutting the door. He’s not happy without Simba,” Dotty yelled.
“Thank you,” Emily managed to holler, but even in her own ears it sounded breathless.
“Good night,” Dotty said and the door slammed shut.
“Neither one of them have been up here in months. I’ve felt like something fishy was going on for days. Now I know it,” Greg said.
“I tell you, they’ve got my bedroom bugged or else they speak cat language and those two boys told on us,” she told him. He knew something was up and the ladies would be lucky if he didn’t find out exactly what it was before the auction.
She stood up and turned on the shower above the tub. “Come on. We’ll take a fast shower, get dressed, and go sit on the steps. I don’t think that’s sinnin’, is it? And Greg, darlin’, that was surreal.”
He put a finger on her lips. “It was, wasn’t it? I missed talking to you today. Somehow texting just isn’t the same. So, yes, let’s sit on the stairs.”
***
It was after eleven when Clarice and Dotty came out of the kitchen and noticed the kittens fighting with a catnip mouse on the bottom step. Dotty frowned and said, “I took them critters up to their bedroom. How’d they get out?”
“They can’t make up their minds if they want to be with me or with y’all,” Emily answered from halfway up the staircase where she leaned against the banister.
“Y’all are up past your bedtime, aren’t you?” Greg asked.
They didn’t fool him one bit. They’d stayed up late just to check on him and Emily. They’d b
oth pushed them together until he said they were dating, and now they worked at keeping them apart. Didn’t Nana realize that she was playing the game backward?
Clarice narrowed her eyes at him. “I thought you had a lot of emails to take care of.”
“Took care of all my stuff and heard Emily giggling at the kittens, so I came out here to see what was so funny. We’ve been talking,” he said.
Clarice sat down on the second step from the bottom. “About the auction? Who are you bidding on, Emily?”
“Oh, do I get to bid? I didn’t know the hostesses got to bid.”
“Of course you get to bid. All unmarried women who buy a ten-dollar bidding fan get to bid. You are going to buy a fan, aren’t you?”
“Haven’t decided. Who are you bidding on, Clarice?” Emily asked.
“I’m bidding on Max,” Dotty said. “I promised him that I’d buy him so that he wouldn’t have to be nice to some middle-aged woman trying to sweet-talk him into bed.”
“If you’ll pass those two wildcats up to me, I’m going to put them to bed. Tell y’all what… if I dream about Greg tonight, I’ll bid on him at the auction. If not, then I’ll stand aside and let all the other single girls have a chance at him,” Emily said.
“Good night, ladies.” Greg blew kisses to them all and disappeared into his room. He picked up his glasses and pen and started to write. His phone signaled a text message.
Emily had written: I need a letter tonight so badly.
He wrote back: Yes, ma’am. Dream about me. Please dream about me.
His pulse quickened as he thought about standing on the bidding block and watching her raise her fan to outbid the other women. He wanted to belong to her. He wanted for the whole area to know that they were together, and he wanted her to stay on Lightning Ridge forever.
He’d dreamed about her since that first night. Sometimes it was sexual and he awakened to find a pillow lying next to him and not Emily. Sometimes it was sweet, like the one last night when they’d been lying on the quilt from the attic in a field of wildflowers. She wore the pretty blue dress that she’d worn to church and she was barefoot. They pointed out the shapes that the big white fluffy clouds made in the sky like two little kids. Their bodies didn’t touch, but their hands were laced together.
He looked down at the ranch stationery and wrote,
Dearest Emily, I dream of you often. Last night…
Chapter 18
For a town the size of Ravenna, the church fellowship hall was huge. The hostesses on the decorating committee had done a fine job of turning it into a lovely reception, complete with yards and yards of frothy white tulle and lots of pretty pink roses—silk for the most part, but then Valentine’s Day had just passed and that had probably wiped out the stock of real flowers for the whole state of Texas.
Emily remembered a line from the old movie Steel Magnolias, when the mother of the bride had said that the whole church looked like it had been sprayed down with Pepto-Bismol. The bride had argued that her colors were pink and bashful!
To Emily, there wasn’t anything pink and bashful about it. It really did look like a coating of Pepto-Bismol. The multitiered cake was even topped with pink satin roses.
“What is my job?” Emily asked Clarice.
“You will hand the bride the gifts when she is ready to open them. She’ll sit in that chair under the canopy with Tommy right beside her. You’ll hand them to her. One of her friends will write down who gave the present and what it is so that she can write proper thank-you notes. And then you will take the present to the display table and arrange it real pretty so that all us fussy old women can make the proper noises about them after they’re all opened,” Clarice answered.
“It’s a shitty job, but somebody has to do it,” Dotty whispered out the side of her mouth.
Emily loved Dotty.
“But why can’t one of her other friends do that?” Emily asked.
“Because it is a hostess’s job,” Clarice said. “Just think, someday you’ll be sitting under the canopy and opening presents.”
Emily shuddered. She might get married someday, but she damn sure did not want a reception that resembled a high school prom.
Dotty patted her on the shoulder. “Words aren’t even necessary.”
Yep, Emily loved Dotty.
“When do my duties start?” Emily asked Clarice.
“When the bride and groom get here, they’ll make the rounds and visit for a little while, then they’ll open presents and after that we will serve refreshments. Tonight it’s wedding cake and a chocolate groom’s cake, plus an assortment of tiny little cheesecakes that Rose makes for these occasions and punch, lemonade, and coffee,” Clarice said.
“So I’ve got time to go to the ladies’ room?”
Clarice touched her arm. “Sure you do.”
The ladies’ bathroom had been recently redecorated and still smelled like paint and wallpaper paste. Emily had hoped it would be a one-potty room with a lock on the door, but no such luck. There were three stalls, double sinks on one wall, and an old-fashioned vanity with a velvet bench already pulled out and waiting for the ladies to check their makeup in the three-way mirror.
She sat down with her back to the mirrors and heard a noise. Her feet rose off the tile floor six inches as she checked every available corner for a mouse. God, she hated mice. Even the little white babies in the pet store gave her a case of hives.
Bocephus and Simba had better be good mousers or she would throw them out in the barn so their less fortunate siblings could teach them what cats did with those scary critters. She didn’t see a thing but heard a whimper coming from the last stall.
“Hello,” she said softly.
“Go away,” a voice answered.
Emily lowered her feet back to the floor. Thank God it was a woman in distress and not a mouse who might run up the side of her cowgirl boot and fall down inside to touch her leg. She’d have to throw a two-hundred-dollar pair of boots in the trash if a damned old mouse touched them.
“Are you okay?” Emily whispered.
“No.”
“Can I help?”
A movement made Emily lean forward. Two white satin high-heeled shoes were visible. “Prissy?” she asked.
“What?” the voice asked.
“It’s Emily. Open the door and tell me why you are crying.”
“Emily? Really?” Prissy asked.
“In the flesh, cowboy boots and all, but I did wear a dress so I don’t look too much like a man,” Emily said.
Another sob.
“You’re going to be a mess for your reception if you don’t stop caterwaulin’,” Emily said. “Come out here and let’s talk.”
She sounded like a sick calf, one that was about half-dead and the other half starving. Emily tried the door, but it was locked from the inside. If she died in there, she was on her own. Emily wasn’t going to kick in the door or drag her body out into the church sanctuary for someone to try to resuscitate her. She was responsible for Tonya and all those other women on the online dating service, not to mention all those sticky notes that were starting to accumulate again on the refrigerator.
Prissy’s face showed above the stall before anything else could be seen. Emily figured she’d look like hammered rat shit after all that blubbering, but other than a little makeup mishap, she looked like a runway model in her cute little white brocade dress with long sleeves.
“If someone comes in the door, I’m going right back inside,” she declared.
Emily pushed the vanity bench in front of the door and sat down on one end. “I reckon if you’ll sit right there, it would take a couple of good strong cowboys to budge that door.”
Prissy sat down and leaned forward, elbows on knees, head in hands. “I made one hell of a mistake, Emily. I hate living on a ranch. I’m not a rancher’
s wife. I don’t like boots and I hate cows. And there are presents in that room and a freakin’ cake and Tommy is about to bust the buttons off his shirt and I don’t want to be married to a rancher.”
“And the whole place looks like it’s been sprayed down with Pepto-Bismol,” Emily said.
Prissy raised her head and sniffled, but a smile did tickle the corners of her mouth. “I remember that show very well. Julia Roberts said that her colors were bashful and blush. It was the only thing about the whole movie that I hated because I absolutely hate pink. It’s what petite little girls wear, not giants like me. Why would they put up all that fluff and pink, gawdawful pink, for my reception? Not one person asked me if I even wanted a big foo-rah! Hell, didn’t going to Vegas let them know that I didn’t?”
She inhaled deeply and went on, “I’ve always liked brown, with maybe a little yellow, and I never liked lace. Momma let Grandma give me this gawdawful name and then dressed me in pink dresses and satin hair bows until I was old enough to rebel.”
The corners of Emily’s mouth turned up in a grin. “Probably, but you got to admit pink bows do go with your name, right?”
“Oh, hush. With a name like Emily and your size, you didn’t have to worry about a freakin’ thing.”
Someone tried the doorknob and then hollered, “What’s going on in there?”
“Sorry, we’ve got a problem. Potties won’t work for at least ten minutes. Use the men’s room right across the hall,” Emily called out.
“The hell I will,” Dotty’s voice was clear. “Emily Cooper, open this door.”
“We’ve got a bride crisis, Dotty. We’ll be out in ten minutes.”
“You’d better be. There’s a bunch of old women in there drinking coffee like camels after a long march through the damn desert and they’ll be hunting a potty in a few minutes. Old women have thimble-sized bladders,” Dotty said.
Emily threw an arm around Prissy’s shoulders. “We’re on limited time. Fix your makeup while we talk.”
“I’m not going to the reception. I’m going to file for an annulment tomorrow morning. Tell them to give the presents back. I don’t need fourteen gravy boats,” Prissy said.
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