Liz stepped out of Raylen’s embrace and blushed.
“We’re in the loft. Be down in a minute,” Raylen called down.
“I’ve got food,” Gemma singsonged back up.
Raylen pulled Liz back into his embrace and brushed a feathery soft kiss across her mouth. “You have the sweetest lips,” he whispered.
“You say that to all the girls?”
He hugged her tightly and traced her jawline with his forefinger. “Only the belly dancers. You are so beautiful, Liz.”
“You say that to all the girls, too?”
He sighed. “Only the ones who can walk the fence better than me.”
Gemma yelled from the bottom of the ladder, “What are y’all doin’ up there?”
“Putting the ornaments all back. We’re on our way down,” Raylen hollered.
“Well, hurry up. Food is getting cold and I don’t like cold mashed potatoes,” Gemma said.
“We’re on our way.” Liz pushed away from Raylen and started down the ladder. “What kind of food have you got?”
“I brought leftovers from Chicken Fried. Jasmine said she’d have to toss them so I figured we could eat while we look through boxes. Today’s special was roast and potatoes, so she sent a container of that, some gravy, some green beans, and a few yeast rolls. It’s still warm, so hurry up. You two can play Santa Claus if you want, but I’m starving,” Gemma said.
Liz didn’t think she could swallow a bite what with the pent up red hot fire in her belly and the nervous jitters flitting around in her stomach. It was a good thing Gemma interrupted them or Liz would have tossed caution out the loft window and turned passion loose right there in the barn with baby Jesus looking on from the nativity scene.
“So what all did you find up there?” Gemma asked.
“You’d never believe it. Uncle Haskell made a huge lawn piece for Aunt Sara every year they were married, and when she passed away he kept on making one a year. They are gorgeous and I’m putting all of them out this year. That’s sweet of Jasmine to send food.” Words came out of her mouth but her body, mind, and soul still relived Raylen’s kisses.
“She said it was going to the garbage if we didn’t want it,” Gemma said. “How many pieces are up there?”
“About thirty-five, near as we can figure, and there’s lights for every one of them. Big lights like the old-time ones they used years ago. It’s going to look like the Griswolds live here.”
And all the lights won’t make as bright a light as went off in my head when Raylen touched my bare skin or kissed me. I’m still too giddy to swallow food and too wound up to sit still.
Gemma nodded between bites. “You can count on me and Raylen and Dewar to help you get them up. It will be fun to help, won’t it, Raylen? Daddy and Momma put up lights around the house and an enormous wreath on the door, and sometimes she makes Daddy drag those wire reindeer things out of the barn to go in the yard. Dewar has one of those pre-lit trees that sometimes he shoves in a corner and sometimes he forgets all about.”
Raylen could have strangled his younger sister. He’d already entertained visions of just him and Liz doing the decorating and all the lusty kisses that would come as a result of working together.
“You really think you can rope Dewar into helping?” Raylen asked.
“Sure, he’ll help. And I’ll get Jasmine and Ace, too. The more hands, the quicker the work will get done. I think Dewar likes Liz, don’t you?” Gemma said. “The way he was flirting around with her was kind of cute. And he is the next one in line.”
“In line for what?” Liz asked. Was there a gadjo ritual that she didn’t know about?
“Daddy says we have to get married in the order of our birth. Me and Colleen have been tryin’ to find wives for these guys for years because we don’t want to be eighty and pushin’ a walker with our wedding bouquets roped to the front of it down the aisle. Now it’s Dewar’s turn and…”
“Things don’t have to happen that way. Daddy was teasing,” Raylen said quickly.
Gemma peeled back aluminum foil from the disposable trays and began to heap food onto her paper plate. “We’ll see. Come on and fill up a plate. I brought paper ones from the beauty shop and even had enough plastic forks. Tell me about the artwork up there. Is it wood?”
The tack room soon filled with the aroma of good food intermingled with the normal smells of leather, hay, and dust. Raylen and Gemma lit into the supper like two hungry coyote pups. Liz was still combating the effects of the make-out session. She drained the tall plastic takeout cup of sweet tea and could have drunk another one, but she barely nibbled around the edges of the small piece of roast she put on her plate.
“It’s wood and painted. Uncle Haskell made it realistic, too. The nativity is so real that the sheep looks woolly,” Liz said.
Gemma talked between bites. “I hated to miss all the fun, but I can’t ever turn down Nellie and Ellen. They are a hoot. They get to arguing about some wild thing Ellen did in the past and bickering, and it’s a helluva lot better than Comedy Central. I tried to get them to come to the Halloween party next week, but they’d have none of it. Said they were keeping the kids so Slade and Jane could come over to it,” Gemma said.
“What kind of stories?” Liz asked. One thing that outsiders did more than carnies was discuss their lives with anyone who’d listen.
“Real life. When Ellen was young, she was a real hellcat. She liked to drive fast, flirt, date, and drive men wild. And she just loves to relive the stories. I like to listen, so we make a pair. She was tellin’ today about the last time she got to drive any kind of vehicle. I’d heard the story before, but she always puts in a few more details and it’s a hoot to listen to her tell it,” Gemma said.
Liz looked over at Raylen and wanted to lick that fleck of potato from the corner of his mouth. When his tongue flicked out and caught it, she gasped and hurriedly covered it with a fake cough in her napkin.
“I’d love to hear the story. Entertain me while we eat,” Liz said to take her mind off Raylen.
“Nobody can tell that story like Ellen,” Raylen said. He didn’t want to listen to his sister’s voice. He’d rather Liz talked about the carnival, her job, or hell’s bells, she could talk about the weather and the fall leaves, as long as he could hear her voice.
“But now my curiosity is aroused, so tell me what it’s about anyway,” Liz said.
Aroused, Raylen thought. More than my curiosity is aroused right now. I need a cold shower or maybe a hot one with you all naked and slippery right beside me. Shit! I’ve got to rein in those thoughts or embarrass myself right here in the tack room!
“Okay,” Gemma said. “We’ve all heard the story a hundred times, but every time they tell it, Ellen embellishes it even more. Ellen said she was fifty, but Nellie raised an eyebrow and mouthed behind her back that she was past sixty. Anyway, she was in a vintage Corvette with this guy. She couldn’t remember if it was a ’55 or ’56 model, but it was one of those cute little red things according to her. He’d been smartin’ off about how no woman was ever drivin’ his ’vette. When he got out at a service station to go to the men’s room, Ellen noticed that he’d left the keys dangling in the ignition.
“She said he was a stupid sumbitch to trust her like that, and he deserved to be taught a lesson. She also admitted that she’d already had more than her share of a fifth of Jack Daniel’s whiskey. She got about half a mile down the road when she lost control on a patch of gravel. She said she went ass over teakettle for a while, and when everything stopped moving, she was sitting on her ass in the edge of a farm pond where cows watered, and there was manure and dirty water up to her waist.”
Gemma was laughing so hard the last words came out one at a time in the midst of guffaws. Liz and Raylen caught the infection, and they all three wiped at their eyes with paper napkins.
Liz’s hiccupped. “Was she hurt?”
Gemma swallowed hard three times. “That’s the first thing I asked, but Nel
lie picked up the story there and said that she didn’t even get a broken bone. But the front of that Corvette had kissed a pecan tree, and if Ellen hadn’t been drunk as a skunk and limber as a wet rag, she would have been killed. Ellen said that Jack Daniel’s saved her life and she’d kept a bottle in the house the rest of her life. She came up sputtering and spitting filthy water and cussin’ a bloody blue streak about getting mud and cow manure on her new boots. The owner of the car had called the police and reported his vehicle stolen and his girlfriend kidnapped. When they arrived a few minutes later, she was sitting beside the car with what was left of the bottle of Jack in her hands. Neither the bottle nor Ellen had a scratch. She offered the cops a drink for coming to her aid, but the sorry bastards hauled her ass off to jail for stealing an automobile, driving while intoxicated, and a few more trumped-up charges. She said she was surprised they didn’t throw in stealing cow shit along with all the other charges, since she took a fair share of it to jail with her in her boots.”
Liz laughed but kept Raylen in her peripheral vision. He chuckled at all the funny parts of the story, but his blue eyes kept undressing her and every piece of clothing that he mentally removed caused her to shiver and want more.
Oblivious to anything but the story, Gemma went on, “Nellie said it wasn’t all that funny because she was the one who had to get up at two o’clock in the morning and go to Chico to get her. Ellen said that she wasn’t about to use that public toilet in the corner of the jail cell, and all that whiskey hit her bladder at one time, so she was dancing in her cow shit boots by the time Nellie arrived. And all Nellie wanted to do was cuss and rant at her. Nellie paid the fines, for the car damage and the whole shebang. And you know what Ellen is still bitchin’ about after umpteen years?”
Liz shook her head.
“That she thought the judge was hot and left her phone number on the table right in front of him, and he never did call her.”
“I’ve got to get to know these women better. Do they come into the café often?” Liz asked.
“At least once a week. Ellen gets her hair fixed every week, and Nellie gets a cut about once a month. I tried to get them to come to the party and bring the kids, but Ellen said she was dressing up like a hooker. Nellie says she’s not letting her out of the house,” Gemma said.
“What are you dressing up like?” Liz asked Gemma.
“Depends. If Creed says he’s coming I might dress up like Daisy Duke. God, but that boy is pretty and the less clothes I have on the less he has to take off,” Gemma said.
“He’s too damn young for you!” Raylen said.
“He’s twenty-four, Brother. And I’m only twenty-five, and I didn’t say I was going to marry him. I just thought I’d make his job easier if we did hook up,” Gemma said.
“Jesus, Mary, and…”
“Forget Joseph. I’d rather have Creed.” Gemma giggled.
“You…” Raylen couldn’t find words.
Gemma slapped his finger when he brought it up to shake at her. “Right back at you. Just remember what’s good for the goose is good for the gander. You O’Donnell guys can be wild, but us girls are supposed to be sweet little lilies? It don’t work that way, Brother. If I want to take off my Daisy Duke cutoff jeans for Creed, then I will do so and you can’t stop me.”
Liz had always wanted a sibling so she could argue just like Raylen and Gemma were doing right then. She switched her empty tea glass with Raylen’s and sipped at his full one while they bickered.
So the O’Donnell guys had a reputation for being a little on the rough side, did they? She’d bet dollars to funnel cakes that not a one of them could outdo Blaze. And if Gemma liked them wild and woolly, maybe she’d be the one to tame Blaze. Too bad he wouldn’t be in Bowie over Halloween. Liz would have wrangled an invitation for him to the party and watched all the women flock around him.
Gemma poked her on the arm. “I asked what you were going to dress up like. What were you thinkin’ about?”
“Blaze,” Liz said honestly.
“You are dressing up like fire?” Raylen forgot about the argument and jerked his head around to look at Liz. So she was going to come to the party as fire. Well, that seemed right fitting the way she’d heated him up with those sexy-as-hell kisses.
“No, I’m not. Blaze is… well, he works for the carnival. His momma was Aunt Tressa’s winter friend in west Texas. It’s a long story, but her friend died when Blaze was fourteen so Tressa took him in and taught him the carnie business. He’s kind of like a surrogate son to her. I was thirteen that year so we were brought up together, kind of…”
“Kind of like a brother?” Raylen asked.
Liz busied herself with a box of ornaments. “Not at all. More like a best friend.”
Gemma sat down on a stool close to Liz. “Tell me more.”
“He’s tall. Blond hair. Strange eyes that are almost gold like a wildcat’s eyes. And he has this animal magnetism that draws women to him like he has supernatural powers or something. He’s a lot of fun and I can’t wait for you all to meet him,” Liz said.
“You going to marry him someday?” Gemma asked bluntly.
“Hell, no! Not Blaze. I’m not so sure any one woman could rope him in on a full-time contract. He’s my friend, not my boyfriend.” Liz laughed.
“Man, I’d like to try,” Gemma said with a sigh. “Well, I’ve got to go. I promised Momma after I delivered supper and made sure things were going all right here that I’d come over to the house and cut her hair. She didn’t have time to get in to the shop today and she has that horse meeting in Wichita Falls tomorrow. I’ll see you tomorrow at the café, Liz.”
“Thanks for the food. Now that I know why there are so many boxes up there, I don’t need to look in every one of them. I’ll start putting things out right after Halloween. I want it all lit up so Momma can see it. I’ll take pictures to send Uncle Haskell,” Liz said.
Gemma headed toward the door. “Then we’ll plan to work on it in the evenings after the big party. If you see me lookin’ like Daisy Duke, then you’ll know Creed is there. Dewar better hang a tag around your neck that says for everyone to back off or those Riley boys will gather round you like a bunch of struttin’ Banty roosters.”
“More like vultures,” Raylen grumbled.
“What did you say?” Liz asked.
He wiped his hands on a paper towel and shook his head. “I was askin’ if you want me to help put any boxes back before I go. I’ve still got some chores to do at home.”
“No, they can all stay right here and I’ll clean up. Thanks for showing me where the lawn things were hidden away, Raylen. I appreciate it.”
Everything had felt so right in the hayloft when she was in his arms and kissing him, but now that Blaze had been set loose, along with a cowboy named Creed and his brothers, there was an awkwardness between them every bit as big as a full-grown Angus bull.
“Be seein’ you around then. Are you really dressing up like a belly dancer?” Raylen headed for the door and then turned abruptly.
“Guess I am. What other women are coming besides Gemma, Colleen, and Slade’s wife?”
“Whole area comes to the party. Becca will be there.”
Liz’s tone was colder than a Texas blue norther when she asked, “And what does she usually wear?”
Raylen grinned. “As little as the law allows. Holler if you decide to get any of that stuff off the loft. It has to be lowered by rope out the door to get it out of there. Haskell cut them out and painted them right on the spot. I told him once that it reminded me of building a boat in a basement. He told me that he’d lower it down with ropes when he got ready to put it outside.”
Liz nodded. She heard what he was saying, but “as little as the law allows” was playing through her mind like a marching band on a continuous loop. Damn that Becca anyway! She was just playing with Raylen. She loved that hired hand with the pretty haircut.
Raylen waved and left her with a plate full of uneaten
food and dusty boxes of decorations. She waved back, but wished Becca would suffer a strange virus brought on by roundheelitis that slapped her big tall butt in bed for at least twenty-four hours on Halloween night.
She pushed all the leftovers into one aluminum tray, turned out the barn lights, and carried the food to the house where she set it on the porch for Hooter and Blister to fight over. She was still muttering about Becca when she went into the house. She turned on the lights and the house phone rang at the same time.
“Hello,” she said. Next week she was buying a new phone that had Caller ID on it and getting in touch with the phone company to have that feature, along with Internet, put on the telephone plan.
“Hi, kiddo. How’d your first day at work go?” Uncle Haskell asked.
“It was great. I met Slade and his granny and her sister,” she said.
“Nellie and Ellen. Two great old gals. They’ll talk your ear off and entertain you with their stories. That Ellen was a rounder in her day. Did she tell you the Corvette story yet?”
“No, but she told Gemma and Gemma told me. And there’s this girl named Becca,” Liz said cautiously.
“Don’t worry about that filly. She’s going to flit all around the roses and land on a pile of pure old cow shit one of these days. She’s all flirt and no substance,” Haskell told her. “So how’d you like Jasmine?”
“She’s great and I liked Amber, but she’s leaving tomorrow morning, so we didn’t have time to be real friends. But I really do like Gemma. I don’t think Colleen is going to be friendly, though.”
“Colleen is a strange one. Gemma is more outgoing. How about Raylen and Dewar?” Haskell laughed.
Liz paused. “Raylen helped me tonight and he’s promised to help put up all the cutout pieces. Then after Thanksgiving, I’m going to help him exercise horses to pay him back. It’s a pretty good business deal. We found all the things you made for Christmas. I’m going to put them all up this year between here and the road. Is there enough power to turn on all the lights?”
“You bet there is. That’s why I called tonight, to tell you all about that stuff. You’ll have the gaudiest house in Montague County. So Raylen helped you, did he? I figured Dewar would have offered.”
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