Champagne and Cowboys

by Donna Michaels

  I admired his backside and assured myself that men usually sported woodies in the morning. There was nothing significant about Gable climbing from bed wearing a hard-on.

  “Did anyone ever serve the cheesecake?” I asked weakly.

  As soon as he closed the door, I scrambled up and pulled his gray flannel shirt over Maxine’s sexy underwear. I needed coffee.

  I communed with Gable’s Keurig, and by the time he emerged from the bathroom, I was sipping a cup of coffee and had my wits about me. He tossed a bottle of aspirin my way, picked up the mug I’d brewed for him, and said, “Gotta check the furnace. And until I get the water heater going again, we’re talking icy showers.”

  I nodded and stared into my cup, avoiding his gaze as I contemplated coffee grounds in the bottom. I thought he’d gone. Instead, he did the chin thing again, lifting my head until I had no choice but to gaze into his eyes.

  “Trust me, Harley-Jane?” he asked.

  I took a moment to admire the way my full name sounded when he got serious, then nodded. Of course, I trusted him.

  He’d fixed my tractors so I could sell them. Last fall, when a section of shared fence collapsed, he’d fixed that, too. I’d tried to pay him and he’d done his cowboy thing, tipped his hat, and drawled, “We’re good.” Beth had pointed out half of it was her responsibility since we were neighbors and I didn’t argue further.

  He’d even babysat Tucker, my hundred-pound German shepherd, in June when I’d gone to visit Bud.

  “Of course, I trust you.”

  He took the cup from my fingers, set it on the counter, and moved into my space, well his space, but my space in his space. I gibbered mentally as most of the oxygen left my brain.

  He stared down at me pensively as his hands came up, cupped my jaw, and angled my head. My eyes crossed, trying to track the descent of his mouth. I quit looking when he covered my lips with his. Oh yeah. I remembered this.

  Too soon the kiss ended, leaving me feeling bereft. I blinked, trying to reorient myself and find reality.

  “I’m glad you trust me, sweetheart.” He brushed his thumb over my mouth. “Trust me on this. When we do do it, and that will commence happenin’ soon, there won’t be anything ugly between us, and you sure as hell won’t be forgettin’ what we do.”

  I gazed into his eyes and wondered where the hell the real Gable Matthews had gone. The new, sexy version winked at me, swatted my behind, muttered, “Sure did like you in that red dress,” and went to check the furnace.

  Huh. In a weird sort of way, Gable had always kind of faded in and out, running like a screensaver in the background of my life. I mean, I’d gotten used to him being around.

  He was a mechanic, a friend of my brother, and a brother to my neighbor. The fact he was a mechanic and not a firefighter made me happy for unexplored reasons.

  Using Dad’s ‘who are your people test,’ I knew Gable’s pedigree. Sort of. What I didn’t know was how I felt about sex. Since David’s death, there hadn’t been any doing it, alone or otherwise.

  Come to think of it, until very recently, I hadn’t even thought about doing it. I touched fingers to my swollen lips. Evidently, somehow, I’d missed a segment of the ongoing show and the entire plot had changed.

  I popped aspirin and wandered from the kitchen, stopping in front of the muted big screen, transfixed by the scrolling message. “…State of Emergency… Governor has declared…” No cars, planes, trains, or buses were moving.

  Criminals were, though. Store lootings had already begun, and a taxi driver and his passenger were found murdered. I lost interest in watching the scrolled disasters and moved to the window to peer outside.

  I couldn’t tell if it still snowed or if the wind continued to recycle the white stuff. But everything, everywhere, looked frozen. Even the giant snowdrifts looked frozen.

  I wouldn’t be going home just yet. Since I needed to shower, and I’d rather get naked while Gable was gone—my body zinged from his kiss—ice water would be good.

  The water turned out to be tepid, but warm enough for me to comfortably scrub and rinse. A shower had never felt so good and after I finished, I realized the aspirin had kicked in. While enjoying the absence of the headache, I rubbed my hair with one of the surprisingly soft towels stacked in the bathroom.

  My own clothes, folded neatly in the corner, were dry but dirty. Really dirty. There might be a laundromat in the building. I’d find out. But that left now.

  My New Year’s Eve wardrobe choices were still available. I noted the price tags and grimaced. Maxine had expensive taste in lingerie. I slipped into the midnight blue set and subtracted the cost of two bundles of shingles from my rainy barn fund.

  But covering the blue, which was an almost sinful waste of sexy, raised another problem. I certainly wasn’t putting the red floozy tube back on. And, the little black dress was out. By default, I pulled on the Capri pants but opted for Gable’s flannel shirt instead of the silk blouse, saving it until after I’d cleaned.

  The festivities might have ended, but remnants remained. I vaguely remembered confetti and streamers flying around at midnight. I found a lot of both on the counters, floor, and walls. Silver, blue, pink, gold, and lime green specks glittered in clumps on the ceiling as well, but no way could I get that down.

  I wiped off the walls, counter, and tables, then found a push broom and swept the floor clean of last night’s party.

  Just in time for the next one. I’d forgotten. New Year’s Day, every man’s focus. Football.

  The men each gave me a speculative look when they arrived. If I read their interest correctly, they were curious to know if Gable and I were sleeping together. Technically, that would be a yes.

  Before long, Bud would undoubtedly get more than one call informing him about where I’d spent New Year’s Eve. I didn’t want to think about the call he’d make as soon as he heard.

  Janie, you fucking a friend of mine? Bud didn’t mince words.

  I was not happy at all to greet Noah March. One, he was a very good friend of Bud’s, and two, he brought along his blonde girl friend whose name, according to Gable, was Cheryl.

  I wasn’t looking to strike up a friendship with her, but she hovered near me from the start. It surprised me when she moved to help lay out leftovers for the football crowd. It quickly became clear friendship wasn’t what was on her mind.

  “Won’t last any longer than this storm.” She held the remnants of last night’s vegetable tray as she imparted her message.

  “Excuse me?” I had no idea what she meant.

  “You being Gable’s main squeeze. You’re handy right now. Soon as the snow melts, though, you’ll be out.”

  “Well, that would be normal, since I don’t live here.”

  “Out. I mean, gone. Gable’s got a woman stashed in the country. You’re temporary pussy.”

  Good God. I stared at her vitriolic snarl. When I was in the fifth grade, the boys all laughed and snickered when Mrs. Brown talked about her pussycat. My girlfriends had clued me in on the joke, which still didn’t seem funny to me.

  Since then, I’d read the word in steamy novels. It always made me uneasy, even cringe a little.

  “Is that why you’re so mad? Because you were temporary p-p-p…” I stuttered, honestly unable to say it. My tongue tried to form the word, but my lips wouldn’t allow it to pass.

  “Bitch.” Her face screwed up like a raisin and she slapped the vegetable plate back on the counter.

  I didn’t like the idea of Gable banging her because I told myself I didn’t think Yeehaw Girl good enough for Beth’s brother. Crude, mean, and obviously fickle, Cheryl had arrived with Noah today, and had flirted with everyone in pants last night. But she was pretty when her face wasn’t screwed up like a raisin.

  And men like pretty, so he’s probably bumped uglies with her. I also did not care to consider Gable’s mystery woman. No wonder he stopped at Beth’s so often. His lady friend must live nearby. That did not make me ha
ppy.

  “I have things to do. Go away.” Ignoring Cheryl seemed the easiest option, so that’s what I did. It worked. She went back to hanging all over Noah March and left me alone.

  Church arrived, wearing kitchen gloves and carrying a giant pot of chili.

  “I’ve got an apron I’ll share,” I teased him and motioned him toward the kitchen.

  Gable uncoiled himself from the couch, grabbed a bottle from the ice-filled cooler sitting in the middle of the floor with a tarp under it, and tagged along behind me when I followed Church.

  He deliberately positioned himself behind me so that when Church spoke to me, he spoke to Gable too.

  “I’ll be talking to Bud, soon. I’ll tell him you both said hello.”

  “Do that,” Gable answered and laid a possessive hand on my shoulder.

  “Are you always so subtle?” I murmured up at him.

  “Only when it’s important,” he drawled.

  He was saying more with his eyes than I wanted to hear.

  I hoped he interpreted my disinterested stare as I retreated to my work. I couldn’t say which bothered me more, the thought of Gable with Cheryl, or the idea he had a woman he kept hidden away somewhere.

  I hadn’t touched my portfolio since Gable carried it in from his truck. Sketching offered me an excuse to distance myself from everyone.

  I opened the tote bag and inspected the contents. Thank heavens I found nothing obviously wet or crumpled. Considering that I’d ridden the canvas-covered tote like a snowboard, I counted myself lucky.

  It didn’t take me long to bury myself in the work. I started with the biggest and baddest, Marty Jones, owner of Smoke, Inc. I’d known him most of my life. He and Dad had been friends, though not contemporaries. Dad had been friends with Marty’s wife Kit before she’d married a kid seventeen years younger than her.

  It had been a scandal that turned into a romance. Dad had teased her that she’d robbed the cradle but it was hard picturing Marty Jones ever fitting into a cradle.

  To my ten-year-old self, the joining of that couple seemed incomprehensible. Now they made sense. Huge, clumsy off the dance floor, Marty had caught a pixie who laughed and joked and loved him with all her heart.

  Instead of sketching his too-long graying hair, bushy eyebrows that needed trimming, and general air of sadness, my hand moved of its own volition to produce a sketch of the towering Marty bent over diminutive Kit. They’d loved to dance. I finished it and sighed. It wasn’t fair. But then, I knew from personal experience, cancer wasn’t fair.

  I moved onto a group picture of the men in the room. I totally got the open floor plan and big, overstuffed, moveable chairs. Forgotten and undisturbed, I studied the bundled testosterone sitting in front of the television and sketched them with abandon.

  I’d never been surrounded by so much maleness. Steve Deakins, Lucas McKenzie, Mitchell Riley, Noah March, Church, Marty Jones, and Gable. They watched the game, sporadically talked business, and complained about the building.

  “The furnace is going next. Plan on replacing the whole thing.” Gable’s news cast gloom over the faces of Marty’s crew.

  “Maybe you can coax it back to life. You’re good at that kind of thing.” Noah March looked my way pointedly, and Church snorted.

  Heat scorched my face. Jeez, maybe I’d consider more than friendship, might even be ready to take the plunge into a relationship, but I didn’t need these guys ogling the process.

  Gable delivered bad news and used it to turn their attention back to the furnace where it belonged. “No parts to be had. Trust me, I’ve looked. The model in the basement was manufactured the year Christ was born.”

  “Can you get the rest of the winter out of it?” Marty asked hopefully.

  “Not if the weather stays as cold as it’s been.”

  “Supposed to warm and melt soon. With you doing your magic, it’ll hold. Mitch, your team just picked up five—in the wrong direction.” Marty handed the problem of the furnace back to Gable and the men again immersed themselves in the game.

  When the radiator putting out already tepid air seemed to wheeze more than usual, Gable left to check the furnace yet again.

  I sketched each man in the room, then returned to the group picture. The final product looked like a cross between Gorillas in the Mist and Dancing with Wolves. Maybe not Darwin’s brightest, but his strongest. In their own peculiar way, they were family.

  Church angled over to look at my drawing and held out his hand. “This goes in the bar.” I scribbled my initials, HJ, removed the caricature from the sketchpad, then handed it to him. Deakins took that moment to explode from his chair and rant at the big screen.

  “Jesus fucking Christ, would you look at that? Cowboy’s got a better shot at riding his whole goddamned box of toys into the end zone than the clown holding the football.”

  I laughed with the rest of them, but felt a niggling sense of unease. When Church brought me a bowl of chili and a glass of milk from the kitchen, I questioned him.

  “So, you all live in this building?”

  “Yep. It’s cost-effective. Gotta live somewhere. This way, everyone shares the utilities, pays rent toward living, and that goes on the mortgage.”

  Before I could change my mind, I said quickly, “Gable’s a mechanic. How come Cowboy’s his nickname?”

  Church tipped his beer and swallowed half before he answered. “Guess it started years ago. First time he met the crew, he wore his Stetson, boots, and Grand Champion Bull Rider belt buckle. But the nickname stuck when he learned how to deliver our equipment to the center of a fire.”

  “And how does he do that?” I asked, knowing I didn’t want to hear the answer.

  “Prettiest thing you’ll ever see. Packs the gear, hooks it to a ’chute, gauges the wind, climbs on a box, jumps out of the ’copter, and guides the whole damn package down to ground zero. Never misses. Always delivers.” Church finished his beer and set the empty on the counter. “Ride ’em, Cowboy.”

  I thought I might throw up.

  Chapter Eight

  He’d fooled me. Fury at his betrayal made my insides churn. Instead of seeing him as a loveable handyman, a friend, my mind sketched him as a weasel, a miserable sneak in a Stetson. He’d infiltrated my life without permission and wiggled his way into my…

  My pencil flashed across paper, venting my rage. I ignored him when he returned from the basement. Eventually the game ended and everyone but Gable left. I wanted to be gone as well. Instead, trapped in his lair, I simmered inside. I didn’t have enough paper left in my sketchpad to work myself into calm.

  No. I didn’t simmer. I seethed. He wasn’t a mechanic. He was a fireman. Worse. He was a smokejumper. He worked for Smoke Inc., part of the crew.

  Those idiots were crazy. Marty had inherited the business from his wife when she died of cancer. Since then, he’d poured all his excess time into growing it. Smoke Inc. now put out fires all over the world.

  I’d been thrilled when Bud moved to LA and switched to a hotshot crew. He still risked his life every time he jumped into fire, but at least he wasn’t dodging sniper bullets on his way down.

  So, I just decided my budding relationship, based on misinformation and emotional manipulation, had ended. When I couldn’t muster up enough energy to draw one more sketch, I called Beth to find out if my animals were still okay.

  “What kind of livestock do you have now?” Gable ignored me ignoring him and inserted himself into my world as soon as my conversation with his sister ended.

  “Nothing’s changed since you dog-sat for me. The same few animals share space in my barn. I’ve got a horse named Emmett, a goat named Charlie, Nameless, a barn cat, and you’ve met my dog Tucker.”

  I planned to play it cool, pretend we were still friends, stall his advances, and leave his man cave the first moment possible. I leapt on the innocuous topic and described my livestock in detail designed to bore him to death. He listened as if he were interested and asked que
stions.

  “Why’d you end up staying in the country alone?”

  “Like Marty and crew, David and I put our eggs all in one basket. He sold his first book before he got sick. We invested the money in a three-hundred-acre farm. We were going to name it Bliss.” I swallowed the bile threatening to choke me but I couldn’t stop the tear when it slid down my cheek.

  “His illness took everything but that. I had to sell most of the land to pay the medical bills.” Funny, I just felt tired now. No anger, just godawful weariness. “If I could find boarders, I would. At least you have someone sharing your pain. I don’t get to divide the cost of my disasters.” I could do this. We were nattering on like old friends. Then he switched subjects.

  “You have a good life with your husband?”

  My breath hissed, jarred by the question coming from left field.

  “Of course, I had a good life with him. We just didn’t have long enough.” I burned with anger at the unfairness.

  “Guess you would have skipped loving him if you’d known it’d be so short…”

  “Do. Not. Go. There.” My plan to play it cool and be gone ASAP went out the window when Dad’s Irish temper, mixed with Mom’s Italian passion, found life in me.

  “And stop with the endearments. I am not your sweetheart, buddy, or friend. I’m a reluctant houseguest until it melts outside. When that happens, I’ll send Maxine thanks and a check for her lingerie.”

  “Running scared, huh?”

  “Recognize this?” I shoved my sketch under his nose.

  He smiled. No, he grinned as he looked down at the furry cowboy, waving his hat and yelling “Yippee ki-yay” as he rode straight into the flames of hell.

  “You’re pretty damned good at those cartoons,” he drawled. “You plannin’ to ever get back to the real stuff?”

  Real stuff? What I do is real art. I started to land a blistering remark until I recognized the gleam in his eye. Nice pivot. But it didn’t work.

  “Seriously? That’s all you have to say? How about, ‘hey, I’m sorry I misled you into thinking I’m a simple mechanic.’?”