Long, Hot Texas Summer

by Brown, Carolyn

  How he went from dressed to naked was a complete mystery, but there he was poised over her, his face so close that she could see single whiskers in his five o’clock shadow. Her long legs wound their way around his waist and one hand slipped between them to guide him inside her body. Then nothing mattered but satisfying the rising hot need they shared.

  She rocked with him, arching against him in that final moment and crying out his name in a muffled scream. Her legs relaxed and slipped back to the bed. He rolled to one side with her tight in his arms. The warm afterglow wrapped them in the sweet arms of pure unadulterated satisfaction.

  “My God, Loretta,” he said, hoarsely.

  “I know, Jackson,” she whispered.

  And then they slept.

  Chapter Seventeen

  THE WEATHERMAN CALLED FOR A HEAT WAVE that would cause the temperatures to rise to the triple digits and not drop below ninety even at night. For once, that fellow knew exactly what he was talking about. The sun came up like an orange ball of fire over the eastern horizon of the canyon and with it came the stuff that truly made a long, hot Texas summer.

  No rain in sight for at least two weeks and no relief from the scorching heat wasn’t anything new to the canyon folks, but it made for short tempers and long days. Even Rosie was grumpy that evening after supper.

  “I’m going home. I’ll be here to cook breakfast tomorrow morning and I’ll take care of dinner, but I’m going home as soon as it’s over. I’m getting too damned old to be going back and forth between houses. So, Loretta, you’re going to take on supper from now on until you can get someone hired. I told you two weeks ago today that I was quitting, so consider this my half retirement,” she said.

  Loretta poured a glass of sweet tea and took a sip. When Rosie spoke it was law, but maybe this one time Loretta could sweet talk her out of her decision. “Rosie, you can’t do this. I’m supposed to plow all day tomorrow.”

  “Too damn bad.” Rosie hung her apron on a hook beside the door. “Besides, you’ve got a party to take care of this coming weekend. Have you got all your ducks in a row? You will need your afternoons for the rest of the week to take care of last-minute stuff. The hired hands can plow. Maybe it’ll get you and Jackson on the ball and you’ll get serious about interviews. I mean it, Loretta. I’m retiring.”

  “Hiring someone else is between you and Jackson. I’m only here for a visit, remember,” Loretta snapped. And besides, she was having sex at least three times a week even if it wasn’t in the house, so by damn, she shouldn’t have to cook and clean for her room and board.

  Rosie’s finger came up so quick that it almost popped Loretta right on the nose. “Don’t you sass me, girl. And anyone who sleeps in this house, eats in this house, and uses that big bathtub damn sure lives in this house.”

  “You said I was only visiting a few weeks ago.”

  “That’s when I thought you’d lost your backbone and you’d be gone in forty-eight hours. You proved me wrong, so now you get to take over the house in the afternoons. Good luck with that and the party.” Rosie slammed the door on her way outside.

  Jackson meandered through the kitchen, empty tea glass in his hand. “I came for a refill and heard voices. Nona and Travis at it again?”

  Loretta gave him a look and shrugged.

  “The back door slammed. I figured she followed him outside,” he explained.

  “It was Rosie,” Loretta said. “I think she means it about retiring, Jackson. She says I have to take over supper from now on and she’s going home right after she puts the noon meal on the table. I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if she makes me take on dinner and supper entirely after the party is done. You’d best get real serious about hiring someone.”

  Jackson slumped down in a kitchen chair. “Well, shit, Loretta! I haven’t got time for interviews in the middle of a summer like we’ve got. Will you take care of it for me?”

  She nodded. It might be a good thing. She could pick out someone who would be good to her daughter if Nona won their fight after all.

  “But one thing at a time. She says that the first of September is her last day, so we’ll have a few weeks to get serious about hiring someone after the big ranch party. I’ll interview and pick out the top two folks for the job. But you have to make the final decision, Jackson. Nona’s tuition is due by the end of July. If she still won’t go back to college and there’s no hope left, I’m going home. So you’ll sure need to have someone hired.”

  He filled his empty glass with ice cubes and more tea. “We still have a date for Saturday night?”

  “Of course, but what has that got to do with hiring someone? She’s dead serious, Jackson.”

  “Like you said before, one thing at a time, Loretta. After the party on Friday and the cleanup on Saturday, we deserve a night out. Plus, your folks are coming, so after they leave, you’ll be ready for a night away from the ranch. On Monday we’ll start working on hiring someone. I promise.”

  “You win. Instead of a picnic at the creek, let’s go to a hotel in Amarillo that has a pool and a restaurant attached to it that offers room service. Why didn’t you ever put in a pool?” She wrung water out of a dishrag and wiped down the sticky counter.

  “I was afraid Nona would drown. If anything happened to her on my watch, I would have died, Loretta.”

  His tone was so serious that she stopped what she was doing and laid a hand on his arm. “But she’s an excellent swimmer.”

  “Losing you about killed me, so it was hard for me to even let her out of my sight,” he admitted. “And then my dad died before I could face myself for what I’d done. If anything would have happened to Nona, I’d be an alcoholic far worse than Dina is.”

  She laid a hand on his shoulder. “I’m sorry, Jackson.”

  Before Jackson could say another word, Nona and Travis wandered through the kitchen and Nona asked, “Y’all want to play a game of Monopoly or watch a movie? It’s too hot to sit outside.”

  “Not me. I vowed that when you grew up I’d never play Monopoly again,” Loretta said. “Besides, I’ve got a party to plan, and believe me, I’m thinking simple is good in this heat. The kids would smother in a bouncy house.”

  “Carnival?” Nona asked.

  Loretta shook her head. “Not that either. Plain old horseshoes and croquet, and I’m delegating the job of buying prizes to you two. You know what kids like these days.”

  Nona’s eyes glittered. “Snow-cone gift cards and movie DVDs. Oh, and maybe some matinee tickets. What’s our budget? I love it, Mama.”

  “Whatever a bounce house and a carnival would have cost,” Loretta answered. “And I love you too.”

  Her phone rang so she stepped out on the porch and answered it. “Hi, Maria. Are you in Florida yet?”

  “We just took each other’s pictures in front of the Disney World sign. Check your phone when we get finished talking. Maria’s inside buying souvenirs for all her relatives,” Heather said. “I wanted to be sure you are okay.”

  “I’ve never been better, but I can’t believe I said those things to my sisters,” Loretta said.

  “You really did, and it’s about time you put them in their place. We had to take the phone from you and hide it before you called your mother,” Heather laughed. “Shit fire, girl! Miss Katy didn’t like us real good when we were kids. She’d string us up if you talked to her like you did your sisters.”

  “Hey, they needed a good dressing-down. Believe me, they’ve done the same to me in the past. Maybe not with the same language, but still, I think they might have gotten the message. Thank y’all both for letting me talk it out and for crying and laughing with me.”

  “You’re welcome,” Heather said.

  “And if either of you need anything, call me. Keep me posted on the trip.”

  “You could still join us. You could fly down to Florida and we’ll
come pick you up at the airport. We’re finished here in Orlando and on our way to Laguna Beach for a few days of sun and fun and half-naked men,” Heather teased.

  “Maybe another time,” Loretta said.

  “Okay, darlin’. We’re rootin’ for you. Got to go. It’s my turn to drive. Big hugs,” Heather said.

  Loretta put the phone back in her pocket. She had friends in Mustang. Good friends whom she went to church with, out to eat with, and to the movies with. But no one knew her like Heather and Maria.

  Rosie was humming in the kitchen when Loretta poured her first cup of coffee. “I’m making a ham for dinner today. You can slice the leftovers for supper and make potato salad if there are leftover mashed potatoes.”

  “I thought maybe you’d got over your snit,” Loretta said.

  “Ain’t a snit. It’s a fact.”

  “Rosie, are you playing matchmaker?” Loretta asked.

  “Hell, no! I don’t give a rat’s ass what you and Jackson do about this thing between the two of you. You can’t jump over it. You can’t slide under it. It’s too damn wide to go around and too long to ever see the end of it. But it’s your business if you want to ignore it another blasted seventeen years. I think you are both acting like kids. Worse than Nona and Travis. When they fight, they keep at it until they figure out what was wrong and make up. They don’t run for the hills and pout for nigh on to two decades,” Rosie said.

  “Looks like another hot one.” Nona pulled her blonde ponytail through the hole in a baseball cap as she crossed the kitchen floor and poured a cup of coffee. “I’m glad the tractors have air-conditioned cabs. What are you doing today, Mama?”

  “Until noon, I’m disking that forty acres over beside Ezra’s place, getting it ready for a new crop of alfalfa,” she said. “After that I’ll be in the house, because Rosie is damned and determined that she’s semiretired.”

  Nona set her mug on the cabinet and hugged Rosie. “Thank you.”

  Rosie’s big eyes widened. “For retiring?”

  “No, for making Mama stay in the house. I hate cleaning, cooking, and housework. I was afraid you’d make me do all that when you retired,” Nona answered.

  Rosie clucked like an old hen gathering in her chickens. “And here you are thinking of getting married? A married woman should know how to do all that.”

  “Oh, believe me, Mama saw to it I had a real good education in that department, but it don’t mean I like it one bit. I’d do the work of a field hand and use my paycheck to pay someone to clean for me.”

  Loretta shrugged. “My mama made me learn, and I didn’t like it either. I figured Nona needed to know how, even if it brought the same result.”

  “Like mother, like daughter,” Rosie said.

  Nona picked up her coffee. “Amen and hallelujah for that. I’m going out to the porch and enjoying some semidecent weather. You know, Mama, the porch is my one memory when we were all here together. You and Daddy would sit in the swing and I’d play with my stuffed cow.”

  “Good morning,” Jackson said from the doorway.

  Loretta could count the muscles leading down to his belt buckle through the snug shirt. Faded jeans hugged his hips and thighs and he already had his boots on, ready for the day’s work.

  “Can’t get around it or over it or under it,” Rosie mumbled.

  “Looks like we’ll have to irrigate twice as much as usual. Flint and I are getting the equipment ready to start watering this morning,” Jackson said.

  “According to the weather report, the heat wave will move on out in two weeks,” Loretta said.

  Rosie had been absolutely right about the words on the magnet. She couldn’t fight it, but joining it meant giving up a life that she’d carefully built. Joining it would mean she’d given up trying to convince Nona to finish college. She wasn’t ready to run the white flag up the pole—not yet.

  “Two weeks of this is thirteen days too many. What’s for breakfast, Rosie?” Jackson asked.

  Rosie cracked a dozen eggs into a bowl and whipped them up with a whisk. “Bacon and eggs. Ranchers got to eat good at breakfast. You will remember that, right, Loretta?”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Loretta smiled.

  “You bringing that coffee to the porch with me and Nona?” Jackson asked.

  Nona met them in the hallway on her way back into the house for a refill. “Travis called. He’s joining us for breakfast.”

  Jackson held the door for Loretta and followed her to the swing. “What’s Rosie in a stew about?” he whispered.

  “She still doesn’t think we’re taking her serious about retirement.”

  Jackson threw an arm over the back of the swing, letting his hand rest on Loretta’s shoulder. “It’s not easy getting old and stepping down.”

  “I love that old girl even when she’s cantankerous and bossy,” Loretta said.

  Loretta turned off the music in the tractor and let her mind wander. It might have been the monotony of driving back and forth from one side of the pasture to the other, but everything seemed to bring her back to what Rosie had said about there not being a way to get over the feelings she had for Jackson.

  The question was whether she wanted to get over it or whether she wanted to see where the pathway led. Either way, she didn’t want to answer the question, not even to herself, so she picked up a CD from the passenger seat and slid it into the player. The first song on it was “I Won’t Let Go.”

  You don’t seem to want to let go, so why are you fighting against a good thing? the voice in her heart asked.

  “Because I’m as afraid as Jackson was of putting in a pool. What if I lose her? She’s all I’ve got,” Loretta whispered.

  The cell phone ringtone jarred her for a second. It wasn’t until the third ring that she fished it out of her pocket. She checked the caller ID and answered on the fourth ring. “Hello, Jackson.”

  “I’m thinkin’ about Saturday night and a big old Jacuzzi tub in a fancy hotel room with a king-sized bed. Would you be thinkin’ the same thing?” Jackson asked.

  “Which hotel?”

  “It’s a surprise. Pick you up at seven. What’s for supper tonight?” he asked.

  “Something cold. We may have ice cream sundaes,” she answered.

  “Sounds good right now. Another hour and it’ll be quittin’ time. What CD do you have playing?”

  “I don’t know. It doesn’t have a cover, so it could be something Travis made for Nona. It’s a mixed tape with love songs,” she answered.

  “Well, they definitely are in love,” Jackson said.

  “No shit, Sherlock. What gave you the first clue? That hickey on her neck the first night I got here or the way he looks at her or their fights?”

  “All of the above. And thanks for helping with the ranch work, Loretta.”

  “I’m doing it at this point because I like it. I’m paying for my room and board with sex. Guess that tells you what I am, right?” she told him.

  His laughter echoed off the sides of the tractor cab even after she hung up.

  Chapter Eighteen

  NONA HELD A WORN OLD STUFFED ANIMAL in one hand and poured a cup of coffee with the other one. She looked over her shoulder at Rosie and her mother. “If you can’t find me, I’ll be in the barn. I’ve built a fort for me and Bossy. We are going to hide out there until everyone goes home. Travis says he’ll look in on me on his breaks and he’s promised to bring me beer and bologna sandwiches.”

  Loretta’s brow drew down as she squinted. Sure enough, that was Nona’s old stuffed animal. How had it gotten to the ranch? She’d put it on the attic years ago in the house in Mustang.

  One minute Rosie was cracking eggs into a bowl. The next her finger was an inch from Nona’s nose. “Young lady, you say you want to be a rancher, well, by damn, this is part of the job. You don’t get to spend every da
y getting sweaty and working. Sometimes you have to dress up and go to a party. It’s when you show the hired hands how much you appreciate all their hard work and let the people in the canyon know that you are one of them.”

  “So”—Loretta could feel her nose curling in disgust at the idea of beer and bologna—“what’s got a burr stickin’ in your ass anyway, Nona? You love parties. You love the canyon folks, even old Ezra. I thought Bossy was in the attic in Oklahoma.” What was the matter with her? The mere thought of bologna or mayonnaise turned her stomach and the smell of beer gagged her.

  Nona blushed. “Bossy was in the attic. You put him up there with the rest of my stuffed toys that year when I gave up my Barbie dolls and toys. It was the worst night of my life. I couldn’t sleep without him, but I didn’t want you to think I was still a little kid, so I waited until you went to work and rescued him. He goes everywhere with me.” She pushed away from the cabinet and came to military attention. “My name is Wynona Katherine Bailey. I am a grown woman. I am addicted to a stuffed black-and-white bull named Bossy.”

  Rosie laughed. “You are a comedienne, Wynona Katherine. Take your coffee to the table and sit down. I’d rather you were addicted to a stuffed animal than booze, like Dina, or drugs or tobacco.”

  “What are you afraid of, anyway? These people love you,” Loretta asked.

  “It’s not the canyon folks, Mama. Or the ranchers from Claude, Silverton, Turkey, or Goodnight. It’s not any of them. It’s our Sullivan relatives. Are you aware that they are coming for the whole weekend? They’ll be here by the middle of the afternoon and they’re convoying with all three of your sisters and their families in their motor homes.”

  “I know,” Loretta sighed. “They were supposed to come for the day and leave, but they’ve decided to stay for the whole weekend. I think they might be bringing an intervention with them.”

  Nona sat down beside Loretta. “From what my sweet cousin Faith tells me, they are coming to back you up on the Nona/college issue and to convince us both to go back to Oklahoma. That’s why me and Bossy are heading for the hills. We’ll watch the fireworks from the hayloft,” Nona said.