Just a Cowboy and His Baby (Spikes & Spurs)

by Carolyn Brown

  “I didn’t mean to startle you. You were so engrossed that you didn’t hear me.”

  Gemma held it up higher. “It is pretty, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, it is. I love wind chimes—and hair.” She touched the turban.

  Gemma raised an eyebrow.

  “Cancer, but I’m in remission so they’ve promised I’ll get it all back. I do like that wind chime. Are you buying it?” she said.

  “I don’t know. It reminds me of one that Momma has on the back porch, but the chimes are horseshoes. I have a construction paper horseshoe in my trailer out there. When I win at a rodeo bronc rider event I get to put a paper shamrock on it.” Gemma didn’t normally share personal things with strangers and suddenly wished she could take it all back.

  The woman smiled brightly. “I bought a horseshoe and hung it above my door. My ancestors were Irish. We’re a tough lot and I’m going to beat this cancer.”

  Gemma smiled. “Can I grow up and have your courage?”

  The lady patted her on the arm. “Sure you can, darlin’. Now which one of us is going home with that wind chime?”

  Gemma handed it to her. “You are. I’m going to buy that one with the shells because when I win the title in December, I’m taking a vacation to the beach.”

  “Now that is determination, planning, and ambition,” she said. “Is that your husband out there with the little dog?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “Your feller then?”

  “I’m not sure what he is,” Gemma said honestly.

  “You know him, though, and you are traveling together, right?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “You got to be from Texas. Folks up here aren’t so quick to say ma’am.”

  “I’m from Ringgold, Texas. Little place right across the Red River from Oklahoma. I’m on the rodeo circuit and I’m bound, damned, and determined to be the next woman to win the bronc riding event in the Vegas finals.”

  “Well, you go get it! Looks like maybe I need to have your courage,” the lady said.

  Gemma picked up her wind chime and headed for the front counter with the woman right behind her. “A word of advice from an old woman who should keep her mouth shut. Don’t shut a door before you look to see what’s behind it. And I’ll mark it on my calendar to watch that Vegas rodeo.”

  “Thank you,” Gemma said.

  The woman paid for her items and they walked out of the fruit stand together. The lady got into a Cadillac and drove away.

  “You buy out the whole place?” Trace looked at her cart.

  She held up the wind chime. “Almost. Look at what I bought. It’s going to remind me that I get a vacation when I win the title. You want me to take care of Sugar while you make a pit stop? I made a dash through the ladies room while I was in there. Got to warn you, though. There’s no air-conditioning in the bathrooms and it’s like a sweat lodge,” she said.

  He handed her the leash and she leaned against the truck to wait. Sugar chased a grasshopper, growled at a bee, and kicked dirt behind her to teach those bugs not to mess with a mean ferocious Chihuahua.

  He brought back two bottles of ice-cold root beer and handed one to Gemma.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  “You’re welcome. See you in Boise.”

  He pushed the cart out to her truck, unloaded all her fruit and vegetables into the backseat, and opened her door, picked up Sugar, and then slammed her door shut.

  “With those manners, my daddy would really, really like you,” she mumbled.

  They pulled into the Boise/Meridian KOA at four forty-five. The thermometer inside her truck said the outside temperature was ninety-six degrees, but it felt like it was only six degrees hotter than the devil’s pitchfork when she stepped out of the air-conditioning into the blistering heat.

  She hurried inside the small log cabin that served as an office with Trace right behind her, Sugar in his arms.

  “Cute dog. Y’all got reservations?” an elderly gentleman with white hair and a white moustache asked.

  “Yes, sir. Gemma O’Donnell.”

  “And Trace Coleman,” Trace said.

  “Oh, I thought you was a newly married couple. I seen it a million times. Folks get married and get a dog instead of a baby. I must have been wrong this time.”

  Gemma blushed crimson. “Guess so, sir.”

  He poked a few keys on the computer and looked up, “Okay, that was Gemma, Emma with a G?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Right here. And Trace Coleman. You’d be the bronc rider I been readin’ so much about, right? I hear you done earned a spot at the big one this winter. I saw you ride last year in Cody.”

  “Not yet, but I’m workin’ on it,” Trace said.

  “Well, I got y’all hooked up beside each other at the end of the park under a big shade tree. You want to give me that dog and I won’t charge you for the night.” His dark brown eyes twinkled in a chiseled face full of wrinkles.

  Trace reached for his wallet. “No, thank you. I’ll just pay.”

  “Oh! A sale table!” Gemma’s eyes widened and she headed for a table near the back of the room.

  “Things left from last year’s stock. I got them marked real cheap, missy,” the manager said.

  She picked up a tiny dream catcher with a shell no bigger than her thumbnail embedded in the web. She held it up and the peacock feathers twirled in the breeze from the ceiling fan.

  “I’ll take this. Add it in with my bill for the night,” she said.

  When they had paid and were outside, Trace asked, “Why did you buy that?”

  “Because I wanted it. See the shell in the middle? It’s an omen that I’m going to win and vacation somewhere on a beach.”

  “Okay,” Trace drew out the word to four syllables long. “I bet you still believe in Santa Claus if you believe that fairy tale.”

  She cocked her head to one side. “You don’t? Didn’t you ever sit on his knee?”

  “Every year, and Mother has the pictures to prove it. What’d you ask for when you sat on his knee?”

  She flashed him a brilliant smile. “Depends on what year.”

  “How old were you the last time you sat on his knee?”

  “You mean last year?”

  Trace smiled. “You really did?”

  “Momma has the picture to prove it, but I’m not telling you what I wished for. It’s between me and Santa. He said he couldn’t get it on such short notice, but he’d work on it for this year. We’ll see if he’s really magic or just a man in a suit.”

  “Come on, what was it?” Trace asked.

  “Wild horses couldn’t drag it out of me. Let’s go make supper. I’ve been thinking about that watermelon all afternoon,” she changed the subject. There was no way she’d tell him that she’d really asked Santa for her very own cowboy and a baby by the next Christmas.

  They parked their trucks in the last two lots with a big shade tree between them. Trace climbed out of his truck, shook faded jean legs down over the tops of his scuffed-up boots, and clamped a retracting leash on Sugar’s collar. He hitched it up to the leg of a picnic table and let her go twenty feet in any direction she chose. He sat down at the table and stretched his legs out in front of him.

  “What can I do to help with supper?” he asked.

  “You any good at grilling a steak?”

  “You got a good steak?”

  “Angus from my brother’s ranch in Terral, Oklahoma, and there’s a bottle of watermelon wine in there,” she nodded back toward the trailer, “from my sister-in-law’s cellar.”

  “Then you’d best let me cook it. It’d be a pure sin if you burned a good Angus T-bone,” he said.

  “Who said anything about a T-bone? I’ve got sirloins as big as a dinner plate. I brought half a dozen of them in my little freezer. I thawed two out for supper tonight, and they’ve been marinating in my secret sauce all day.”

  Trace wiggled his eyebrows. “Sounds sexy.”


  She air-slapped him on the arm and said, “Get your mind out of the gutter.”

  “Where should it be? We slept together last night.”

  Gemma clamped a hand over her mouth. “We did not!”

  “Oh yes we did, darlin’! I don’t mind sharing my bed, but a woman has never put me out of it altogether. Sugar and I were glad to let you sleep on the other side, but we did indeed sleep together,” he said.

  She sat down on the picnic table, propped her feet on the bench attached to it, and stared right into Trace’s brown eyes.

  “Okay, Trace, what is this?”

  He grinned. “I thought you were smarter than that, woman. We talked about the picnic bench at the fruit stand and this one isn’t that much different.”

  “What?” she asked.

  “You asked me what this is. It is a picnic bench.”

  “You know what I’m talking about.” Her tone was pure exasperation.

  “A KOA with a grill so we can enjoy supper and fireworks,” he continued to tease.

  “I’m serious.”

  “Okay, then serious is what you get. Seems like we kinda fell into a friendship of sorts. We are going to the same places, doing the same things, talking the same language, and it’s nice.”

  She nodded. “Okay, ground rules then. Whatever this is does not interfere in any way with our bronc riding. Agreed?”

  “Absolutely. I’m not about to feel sorry for you and let you win just because you want your name in the marquee lights for being the second woman to get the title. And I sure don’t give a damn about you wearing that glory crown.”

  Her green eyes were daring when she caught his gaze. “And I’m not about to feel sorry for you because you want a ranch. I’m going to have that title, Trace Coleman. So now do you want to be my friend?”

  “All’s fair in love, war, and on the rodeo grounds, right?” he asked.

  “Oh, yeah, it is! I’ll do anything to break your concentration. I won’t play fair, so be forewarned.”

  He grinned. “And I will do the same thing, so ground rules are accepted. Now let’s get supper going. By the time it gets done I’m going to be half starved.”

  Trace walked into the trailer and suddenly her tiny trailer was jam-packed full of muscles and dreamy brown eyes and it was twenty degrees hotter. He took one look at the paper horseshoe on the back of the door and raised an eyebrow.

  “Look closely and you’ll understand,” she said.

  He looked at the shamrocks with the names of the towns where they’d ridden and realized that only the ones where she had won were glued to the paper horseshoe.

  She tapped the top of the horseshoe. “And that’s where I will hang the big one.”

  “Or not!”

  “No doubts in my mind.”

  “Or mine!”

  His eyes strayed to her bed where the table used to be. “I vote that we take the food into my trailer to eat. What can I do to help?”

  “Soon as I get this done you can put it on the grill for a few minutes before we put the steaks on,” she said.

  She cut tiny newly harvested red potatoes in half and piled them on top of fresh green onions then topped them with yellow squash circles and a slice of tomato before pulling the edges of foil up to form a pocket. He husked and silked four ears of corn, slathered them with butter, and wrapped them in foil and bumped against her at least a dozen times, creating so much electricity between them that every touch felt like a blast from a policeman’s Taser gun.

  “All done! I’ll get the charcoal going now,” he said as he carried the steaks and corn outside.

  Gemma heaved a sigh of relief. Good Lord, if she bumped against him one more time she was sure the whole trailer was going to ignite into a raging fire that would leave nothing but ashes and a metal framework in its wake. And he didn’t act like it affected him one damn bit. Was the cowboy made of pure ice?

  She wet a washcloth with cold water and held it on her face for a few seconds, but it didn’t help the high color in her cheeks. She threw it into the sink and toted the vegetable pockets and a plastic tablecloth out to the table.

  Trace looked up from the grill and said, “Aha, we’re eating out here with the flies and mosquitoes, are we? I told you we could eat in my place since you don’t have a table.”

  She stretched the tablecloth over the wooden table and secured it with half a dozen thumbtacks. “You are supposed to swat flies and cuss mosquitoes on July Fourth. They belong to the atmosphere.”

  “Reckon one of them will tell me what it was that you wished for when you sat on Santa’s knee last Christmas? I betcha that’s why that fly keeps buzzing around my ears,” he said.

  “I’ll bring a flyswat out next and you better hope he doesn’t land on your ear, cowboy.”

  “Bring two. Maybe he’ll land on your cute little fanny,” Trace teased.

  “That’s a lame pickup line.”

  “It’s not a line. It’s a prayer,” he said.

  “I’m not into kinky stuff,” she said and blushed again. They didn’t sound nearly so ridiculous in her head as they did when they hit his ears.

  “Oh? What are you into?”

  “What are you into?” She turned the question back on him.

  “You show me yours and I’ll show you mine.”

  She started back into the trailer. “It’s not show-and-tell day at the trailer park.”

  “So how do you like your steak?” he raised his voice when she shut the door.

  She poked her head back out of the trailer and said, “Wipe the slobbers off his nose, slap his sorry ass on the grill for five minutes, and bring him to me.”

  “Rare it is, and you got that line from Pepper in Cowboy Way.” Trace laughed. “I brought that movie with me. Want to watch it in my trailer after fireworks?”

  “Sounds good to me,” she agreed.

  If her attention was on a movie, she wouldn’t think about how much she’d like to kiss him again. Would his lips on hers always conjure up visions of tangled sheets and sweaty bodies, or were those first couple of times plain old beginner’s luck?

  She remembered Pepper in Cowboy Way with his cowboy hat hanging just below his belly button. Suddenly, Trace Coleman was the cowboy and the hat was the one with the gold hat pin on the brim.

  Dammit! Dammit! I need to cool down, not think naughty things that heat me up even more.

  She grabbed the wet washcloth, added an ice cube to one corner, and went to work on her face again. It didn’t do a hell of a lot to cool her down because she kept stealing glances out the kitchen window at him turning the steaks and talking to Sugar. She tried lip reading, but she couldn’t understand a word of what he was saying so she imagined kissing those lips rather than listening to them talk.

  She tossed the washcloth into the sink again and gave herself a stern lecture. She opened a drawer and took out a long butcher knife, cut the watermelon in half, and started cutting chunks from the heart into bite-sized pieces.

  What would it be like to stretch him out on satin sheets and pile little bits of watermelon on his sexy body? He could handcuff my hands behind my back with those pink furry cuffs I saw at Christie’s, and that way I could only use my lips and tongue to get at the watermelon. Dear God, I’ve got to stop this before it causes me to combust right here in the trailer.

  The lecture worked until she started peeling fresh peaches.

  These would look pretty damn good lined up from his belly button down, and I could pick them up with my teeth and put them in his mouth.

  Fruit was not supposed to turn a woman on, and cutting it up was not supposed to produce pictures so hot they’d melt the devil’s cute little forked tail. She cut up cantaloupe and shook her head every time another vision started.

  “Hey, can you get this please?” she yelled from the doorway.

  He jumped like he’d been shot and turned so quick that he was a blur. “You startled me.”

  “I can see that. What we
re you thinking about?”

  He smiled. “That, darlin’, is my business. Steaks will be done in about three minutes. Vegetables are tender. Are we eating caveman style?”

  “No, I’ve got plates, forks, and even real knives, although if you did it right, the steaks will be tender enough to cut with a fork. Put this on the table for dessert and I’ll bring them out,” she said.

  She’d give up her next shamrock to know what he was thinking.

  Hell, no! I would not!

  She argued with herself as she gathered up sturdy red plastic disposable plates, plastic forks, two real steak knives, along with a couple of paper napkins, a loaf of sliced Italian bread, and a tub of butter. Her hands were full, but she managed to make it from trailer to table without dropping anything, or drooling when he looked around at her with those damn sexy brown eyes.

  Using tongs, he placed a foil package and a sirloin on her plate and turned back to the grill. “Drinks?” he asked.

  “Beer or sweet tea?” she asked.

  “Beer,” he said.

  She went back inside the trailer, got two longneck bottles from the tiny refrigerator, and yelled from the door before she took them out, “Coors?”

  “Best there is if it’s good and cold.”

  She handed him a bottle across the table and their hands barely brushed, but after the thoughts she’d been having, it was the same as red-hot coals landing in her palms.

  “You’d better eat your food before you drink.”

  “Why?”

  “If last night was any indication of your drinking ability, you’ll pass out and I’d hate to waste your steak. Sugar might eat some of it, but those are big bruisers. I don’t think I could eat two, and Uncle Teamer would shoot me if I wasted a single bite of a good beef steak.”

  She cut off a piece of steak, put it in her mouth, and chewed. It was absolutely perfect: rare, hot through the middle, and seasoned just right. When she swallowed she pointed her knife at him. “You got this steak done perfect, but darlin’, I can outdrink any cowboy, including you, on the face of the earth. You want a match, just call the time and place.”