Or was it an attack of inadequacy about going out with Rex?
Whatever it was, there was only one cure for it. Cara headed straight for the mall. She had never been much of a shopper. In Erie, her schoolteacher wardrobe had been fine, and very bland and boring. In Pegleg, at the mall, a whole new world opened up to her.
Victoria’s Secret and three-for-ten-dollars thong underwear was the perfect place to start. Decadently wonderful.
She passed by the conservative slacks without a backward glance. Low-slung hip huggers, the kind whose waistband barely covered her bottom and didn’t come close to reaching her belly button—that’s what she tried on instead, and with a very large gulp, purchased. Her new top skimmed down to almost, but not quite, meet the jeans. A straw purse, slip-on sandals with a cork platform and a very large-brimmed hat with pretty flowers sewn into the band finished off her new outfit. Of course, it also reduced her baby-cow-semen, land-cottage-dog fund by a little bit, but it wasn’t as if she really intended to have all those things. Just the baby. And if she really got her courage up, she might get the human semen free.
She wasn’t sure about the reaction her new clothes would have on Rex, but for herself, she felt suddenly empowered. If her mother saw her, she’d kill her, which made her feel extremely guilty, but oh, so good.
Cara took everything back to Mandelay. She showered, put her new clothes on, then went back to the mirror and turned to see herself as someone else would see her—namely Rex. She wanted to know if she felt the same way wearing her new clothes as she had while trying them on.
The reflection staring back at her didn’t look like the same Cara who had left Erie only a few days before. Now her skin glowed. Her brown eyes had a sparkle in them. Her cheeks were bright and there was a smile on her face that she couldn’t possibly wipe off. Even if she wanted to, which she didn’t.
She touched the necklace. The bracelet rattled. Her knuckles grazed the bottom of an earring. The jewelry was a dilemma she would have to deal with. When she wore all the coins, she felt as if she had so much luck. As if her decisions were all right. Her confidence level high.
Then she saw something that did wipe that giddy smile off her face. She stared at her bracelet, then brought it up close to her eyes to be sure she was really seeing what she thought she saw. More coins were missing. One empty gold bracket was twisted open as if someone had taken a pair of needle-nosed pliers to it.
She must have snagged it on something. But when?
It wasn’t just the loss of another coin. It was the loss of one tiny bit of the luck she was sure came her way when she wore all the jewelry at once.
Luck. How silly. Still, she believed in luck. There was so much she could control in her life. She could shop for clothes in Texas and buy what she really wanted. She could answer questions about the Green Bay Packers, tourist sights to see while traveling in the United States and anything at all about teaching little boys and girls. She felt confident about all these things.
Where her problems cropped up was in the area she had little or no expertise. Romance. That was another matter altogether. Sure, she had dated, a lot. She had been around, a little. But she still had no idea how to make a man see her as the one and only lady to want forever. Or even to lust after for an hour.
Now that she knew she wanted Rex to donate sperm to make her a baby, she had to figure out a way to make it happen. The attraction between them was undeniable. She didn’t think the sex part would be any problem. And if she should get pregnant, well… After all he’d said about not wanting to get married, and since she didn’t either, she doubted her being pregnant would present much of a problem to him. Just thinking about doing it the old-fashioned way, with him deep inside her, made her knees go weak and her stomach burst with bombing butterflies.
His baby. Her baby. Their baby. A real cowboy baby.
She’d use her feminine wiles to convince him. If she had any to use. She carefully outlined her lips with a ruby pencil and filled in the color with her Red-Hot Mama lipstick. She puckered up for the mirror, leaving her eyes wide open. Her lips puckered didn’t look all that bad, but not extremely sexy either. Certainly not like the puckered lips on the models in lipstick commercials.
Maybe if she sucked in her cheeks and puckered. No, all that did was make her eyes bulge out and a strange vacuuming sound come out of her mouth. Of course, in a real situation they would both have their eyes closed and be so caught up in passion Rex wouldn’t notice the vacuuming sound.
For the first time in her life she wished she knew how to do the sexy kind of flirting that led up to the passionate kind of romance. Or even knew how to make her lips pucker better.
She picked up the phone, punched zero for the front desk, although there really wasn’t a front desk at Mandelay, just Rosey, so it wasn’t surprising that Rosey answered. “Do you know how to make lips fuller?” she asked her.
Rosey must have been busy doing something, because she didn’t answer for a while. Then she said, “Ah.” And then, “Well, I’ve heard hemorrhoid salve would do it. I don’t think I have any around here,” she added delicately, “but if it’s important to you…”
“No, no, just curious,” Cara mumbled and was about to hang up when Rosey added, “But I was about to call you. Rex is here.”
Those simple words, “Rex is here,” drove all rational thoughts out of her head. She had to tell herself that the right foot went first, then the left, and march two-three-four.
Before she left her room, she had the good sense to take one last look in the mirror. The lipstick was still on and still bright red. After a brief sweep with the brush, her hair looked wild. She had to forcibly stop herself from tying it back into its old ponytail. A tug on her top, a check on her posture, deep breath, smile on face, okay, she was ready to go. Missing some lucky coins, but ready. She placed the hat on her head, grabbed her new purse and headed to the lobby.
REX WAS HOLDING UP a wall and talking to Rosey. “Hey,” he said, “when a guest needs something for hemorrhoids, he needs it bad. Cara and I could run up to the store first and bring some back before we—”
“No, no,” Rosey said. She had a funny sparkle in her eyes, Rex thought, for an innkeeper with a guest in pain. “It’s not, I mean, she’ll be, ah, he’ll be…”
She babbled on for a few seconds, but then Rosey had always been inclined to babble, and he was just killing time anyway, waiting for his first glimpse of Cara.
And he got it. The first thing he glimpsed were her toes.
Toenails polished a bright red, slender feet slipped into sandals she’d be sorry she’d worn when they headed to the field but that he was mighty glad she had on now. Her stomach came into view next. Flat, her belly button a perfect inny. She wore a white crop top. The collar reached her neck, her necklace bright on top of the white material. The lower part of the shirt barely covered her breasts, and he wasn’t even sure they were covered. He could swear he saw a fleshy curve peeking behind the material. If that wasn’t a breast, then his body had a very male reaction for no good reason.
She made her way slowly down the stairs. He could tell she was balancing carefully on those shoes, those ridiculous sexy shoes. The shoes were the kind that made him want to grab hold of her legs, fling off the shoes, then suck on those red-painted toes.
“Hi,” he said.
“Hi,” she said.
He took her by the arm. “Bye.” She waved back at Rosey. He walked her out the door, then, having a feeling he’d forgotten something, stuck his head back in.
“Bye,” he said to Rosey. She wiggled her fingers at him. She seemed to be laughing. That didn’t make any sense whatsoever. Laughing at what? Women.
“You look nice,” Rex said.
“I hope I’m dressed okay for meeting LuLu.”
“Perfect.”
“Because I really didn’t know what to wear. I mean, this is sort of like meeting your father-in-law for the first time. I want to make a good impression
.”
“And then we’ll drive around, and I’ll show you some property near my ranch that’s pretty reasonable.”
“What’s reasonable to you may not be to me.”
“I’m the owner. It’ll be reasonable.”
She was liking him more and more. He was making everything so easy for her. But it wasn’t meant to be, and she’d have to tell him she wasn’t buying land or cows. Now would be a good time.
“And on the way we can look at some of the cows and calves. You can see what you’re getting into.”
Maybe later would be better. She had time.
She smoothed down her already flat belly, which made his own tie into a strong knot of red-hot desire.
“You couldn’t have picked anything more appropriate,” he complimented her again. She looked as if she were going to a chi-chi luncheon downtown. Not that he was complaining. Not at all. She could expose herself to LuLu anytime she wanted. As long as he was invited to tag along.
He opened the door to the truck, took her arm and guided her in. It was a big step up, and it was as if God himself had answered a prayer when her sandal slipped off, exposing a bare foot. He picked up the shoe. It looked heavier than it was, with its cork platform and thin strip of tan leather across the top. He figured it couldn’t weigh more than an ounce. Instead of handing the sandal to her, he circled her ankle—a very slender one at that—and placed the shoe back where it belonged. The need to suck her toes slammed into him again. He ignored the need and slammed the truck door instead.
He headed back toward the clinic and his ranch, which was all part of the same five hundred acres he owned. All along the route he pointed out land that was for sale. “But I don’t own that land,” he said. She nodded her head, the smile never leaving her face.
“Do you want to take notes?” he asked.
“I’m still weighing my options.”
“This would be a nice place to buy.”
“I thought you wanted me to look at your land.”
“I’m talking about Pegleg.” He couldn’t believe he had said that. He didn’t know if he wanted her to move here. Not yet. Too soon.
“I can’t move here permanently. It would only be for vacations and summer.”
However, he didn’t want her to tell him it wasn’t a possibility. He had no choice but to argue. “Why wouldn’t you want to move here? Permanently, I mean.” Not that her moving here made any difference to him. But the very idea that a person wouldn’t want to live in Texas, and Pegleg in particular, seemed a bit odd to him. “After all,” he said. “This is Pegleg.”
“I’m from Erie.” She laughed at him, which didn’t sit well. Not well at all. First Rosey and now Cara. What was with females lately?
“Don’t you get it?” he asked. “Erie doesn’t have a thing on Pegleg.”
“Have you ever been to Erie?”
“I don’t have to have been there. You’re not looking to buy semen from an Erie sperm bank are you?”
“No. But until I saw your billboards, I hadn’t intended to buy semen at all.”
“I thought you told me you had intended to raise a cow.”
She looked out the window. “I did say that, and that’s right, I did intend to buy a cow.”
“The billboards sold you?” That wasn’t good. He didn’t want the billboards to sell anything. He didn’t want Clay to be right.
“Oh, yes, it did.” She sighed, crossing her arms over her chest, pushing her breasts upward and outward.
He could see her nipples under the white cloth, pointed, erect. Not that he was looking, because he wasn’t. Much.
Cara said, “As soon as I saw the bull and the cow, I knew I had to have some.”
“Some?”
She looked almost embarrassed. Her voice became soft, thoughtful. “A baby. To raise.”
“A calf, you mean?” These city women. They had so much to learn.
“Of course that’s what I mean.” She had this faraway look.
“I told my marketing man to take those billboards down.”
“I don’t know why. They certainly got my attention.”
“But it’s not the image I want to project.”
“What image is that?”
“One of a serious business venture. Not something like two lovesick cattle looking at each other across the freeway as if they can’t wait to get at it.” He glanced at her. “I don’t mean any offense, Cara.”
“I’m not taking offense. But they’re so cute.”
He liked the sappy look on her face, but it didn’t change his mind. “The billboards are coming down. Next week.”
“I’m glad I saw them when I did, then, because if this week had been next week, I never would have known to contact you and I never would have met you.”
“Are you glad you met me?”
She looked at him. Not that he could see her looking, but he could feel her looking, and when he glanced her way, his feelings were confirmed. She definitely was looking.
“I haven’t decided if I’m glad I met you or not.” She got all prim and proper, in direct contrast to her perky nipples and luscious-looking breasts that he could almost but not quite see through the short shirt. Not that he was looking.
Her answer had not been the answer he had expected. Not the one he had been looking for. He thought she’d say, “Oh, Rex, I’ve been looking for you all my life, you sexy thing.”
“There’s the clinic,” she said instead.
“Yep. LuLu lives about a mile from here.”
The land where he kept LuLu under lock and key, so to speak, was the kind of place Cara had described to him earlier, right down to the cottage, flowers and squirrels. He knew she’d like it, not that it mattered whether she did or not. He wanted to believe it. And he would have believed it, too, if he didn’t like being with her so damn much.
“LuLu used to stay in the field behind the clinic,” he said. “We decided to move the cattle once the threat of rustling started.”
“Rustling?” Her eyes seemed to get bigger and her red lips went into a perfect little “oh.”
“Hasn’t happened here yet, but there’s always a threat, especially during the livestock shows. Now semen is being stolen. Sometimes out of the storage areas, sometimes during the shipping between the breeding farms and its destination.”
“That’s pretty incredible. I hope they catch the culprits.”
“Like I said, it hasn’t happened here yet.”
Rex turned into an unmarked driveway and pulled up to an electronic hitching post. He punched some numbers into a keypad and the wrought-iron gate opened to let them continue up the driveway toward the house. After going through the gate, Rex stopped the truck, waiting for the gate to close and lock behind them.
Instead of oohing and aahing over the cottage as most women he had taken here had done, Cara seemed to be watching him watch the gate lock. “What’s going on here?” she said, sounding suspicious.
“Protection.”
“Do I need protection?”
“Not from me. I’m harmless,” he said, and for the most part he believed it. “It’s for LuLu.”
She gave him a sidelong glance. “I’m not sure I believe you.”
“What don’t you believe?”
“That you’re harmless.”
“Good. Because when it comes to you, I’m not sure I will be.”
Those were the most encouraging words Cara could have heard. Maybe her red lipstick and puckered pouty lips were actually working.
From the road, the cute little cottage looked like any ordinary fifty- or sixty-year-old cottage, not unlike the others they’d seen scattered here and there along the road.
Rex circled the house, then stopped the truck again to open a gate through the tall bay laurel hedge that protected the back of the property. Cara let out a gasp. The hedge wasn’t the back of the property at all. It hid not only a mean-looking barbed-wire fence, but acres and acres of land that seemed to stretch
out forever.
“Surprise,” Rex said.
“You’re telling me,” Cara murmured.
The road they took now led through all those acres and was nothing more than flattened grass that wound through fields of identical grass that wasn’t flattened. Behind more barbed-wire fence, cattle dozed under huge oak trees or milled around, chewing their cud and seeming to socialize.
The road didn’t seem to lead to any particular destination, but instead, wound around trees, around ponds and over what she suspected passed for a hill in this flat part of Texas.
He finally stopped the truck beside a field where a lone bull stood all by himself, away from the other cattle.
Rex came around to her side of the truck, opened the door and held out his hand. She didn’t think twice before placing hers inside of his. She was glad to have his help. Glad to feel his touch. And so glad she was wearing her hat. She had bought it because it was cute, different from anything she’d worn before, and it would block out the sun, which seemed even more fierce as it was setting than it had at high noon. She could hear a rumble of thunder from somewhere far away. Then a few light raindrops landed on her shoulders, but they stopped almost at once. Nothing to worry about.
“I wish I’d brought an umbrella,” she said as Rex slammed the truck’s door shut.
“It’s not going to rain,” Rex said.
“I felt a few drops.”
“Humidity.”
“Sure.”
He laughed and took her hand. Cara didn’t care if he teased her. She only knew he must never let go of her hand.
He did let her go, though. Just long enough to separate the barbed wire and let her climb between the wires and into the field. Then he took her hand again and led her up the path of doom, toward the bull. She looked down at her clothes, making sure she wasn’t wearing red. “I don’t know if it’s a good idea to get very close to him,” she said.
“He loves to meet new people.”
A Baby...Maybe? & How to Hunt a Husband Page 12