“Sunday school class?” Cade could hardly believe his ears.
“Poker?” Retta gasped.
“Got you two goin’ didn’t I?” She slapped her thigh. “I need to do some bankin’ and investment business. Been needin’ to take care of it for a while but didn’t quite have the time. Today I’m gettin’ it done. Y’all get on about your business now. Supper ain’t goin’ to be no problem at all.”
“You sure you’re all right. You aren’t sick are you? You’re not just tellin’ me this because you are going to the doctor,” Cade asked.
“She’s fine. Fit as a Stradivarius fiddle,” Skip said. “Now go. Shoo. I been tellin’ you for weeks that these boys could eat bologna sandwiches one day and they wouldn’t die from it. And besides the way she whines about something simple as an ingrown toenail, if she was sick you’d have known about it a month ago.”
“Oh, hush.” Mavis threw her apron at him. “Don’t you talk to me about whinin’. Ain’t nothing worse than a sick man.”
Skip caught it midair and hung it on a hook. “That’s the first time you threw something at me since way back when you wore high-heeled shoes.”
“She threw a shoe at you?” Retta asked.
“She got mad at me and threw it at me. I fell down on the floor and it whizzed past my head and stuck in the wall,” Skip said.
Mavis slung her bright red purse over her shoulder. “You never did flirt with that woman at the feed store again, did you?”
Cade chuckled. “I can’t believe it.”
Retta couldn’t contain the giggles. “They remind me of my mama and daddy, always goin’ on at each other.”
Cade laid a hand on Retta’s back. “Don’t laugh. It makes them worse.”
“I heard that and I won’t forget it,” Mavis yelled.
Retta giggled again.
He could have listened to the sound for an hour. “Pure delight,” he said.
“What?” she asked.
“Did I say that out loud?”
“Yes, you did and I agree with you. They are both a delight. You’d be lost without them on the ranch.”
“Don’t I know it,” he said quickly, thankful that she’d misinterpreted what he was talking about.
“So this is the new program?” She picked up a box from the top of the desk. “Piece of cake. I installed and used this at the farm. It’s simple once you get the hang of it. Even Daddy could use it, and he was all thumbs on the keyboard and definitely computer challenged. When he got to the point when he couldn’t get out much, he took care of that end of the business.”
“But how do you move all the data from the old program over into this one?” He seated her behind the desk, then pulled another chair over and sat down beside her.
“It takes a little time but it’s not complicated.” She opened the box and started to work.
A little time to sit close to you and figure out if this attraction is a good thing, he thought.
She rattled a few keys and then leaned back. “Now it’s a matter of waiting and then following the prompts on the screen.”
“And then you transfer the old stuff over to it without losing anything?”
“That’s the plan.” She turned her head slightly and their gaze caught in the foot of space that separated them. He sunk into her eyes and suddenly they were the only two people in the universe. His hands went to her cheeks, while his thumbs made lazy circles below her ears. The tip of her tongue darted out to moisten her lips. The first kiss was barely more than a brush. Then her hands went around his neck. Her fingers splayed out in his hair and she pulled him forward for more.
The second kiss deepened, and his arms circled around her shoulders. He teased her mouth open with his tongue on the third one and then she moved from her chair to his lap and pressed her upper body tightly against his chest.
They were both panting when she pulled away and went back to her chair. “We can’t start something that could lead to heartache for us both.”
“Why does it have to lead to anything?” He leaned toward her and nuzzled the side of her neck. “Why can’t it just be two adults who are attracted to each other?”
“Because…” She seemed to be thinking about it but then she sighed. “Because it’s not fair to either of us. What if one of us ended up wanting more and the other one didn’t?”
He kissed her on the cheek. “Fair enough, but you will admit that there’s vibes between us?”
“Oh, honey, the sparks have been there since I first walked into the interview,” she admitted.
Cade nodded. “For me too. I don’t think the attraction is going away, now that I’ve had a taste of your kisses. What happens now?”
“Now, I’m going to install this program and we’re going to work together without giving in to our hormones,” she answered.
“Where’s the fun in that?” He grinned.
“No fun. No magic. Just plain old work.”
Maybe for now, but if you feel what I do, you won’t want to stop with only a few kisses, Cade thought.
Chapter Thirteen
Retta tossed and turned, beat her pillow into submission, got up and drank a glass of milk and even tried reading, but it was still after one o’clock in the morning before she finally drifted off into a troubled sleep. But then it was only to dream of Cade.
She awoke the next morning to high-pitched voices in the living room and by the tone and the volume, there was an argument going on. She slung her feet over the bed and rubbed her eyes to erase the vision of Cade with his broad bare chest right there beside her. When she opened the door three of them were squared off and Alice was sitting on the sofa with the cat, Gussie, in her lap.
“What’s going on out here?” she asked.
“They’re fighting about who gets to use the phone first tonight to call home,” Alice said. “Me and Gussie, we’re stayin’ out of it.”
With very little sleep and even less patience, she made a snap decision. “Alice calls first tonight. Alphabetical order by first name. Next week, Alice goes to the bottom of the list and Faith calls first. After that it’ll be Gabby’s turn and then the following week, Sasha’s. Whoever is last gets five extra minutes to make up for having to wait. Do y’all have to argue about everything?”
“It’s what sisters do,” Alice said with a shrug. “Me and my three sisters fuss about everything. Mama had to make rules about who gets to be in the bathroom first in the mornin’s and my oldest sister is a real witch when it’s her turn. She takes too long and almost makes me late for the school bus.”
“I am not your sister,” Faith said with clenched teeth as she glared at Gabby. “Or yours.” Her gaze shifted to Sasha.
“If I was your sister, I’d run away from home,” Sasha said. “And I’d take Gabby with me.”
Retta left them to their banter and went straight for the coffee machine. Thank goodness she’d programmed it the night before and the pot was full because she needed something other than bickering girls to wake her up that morning.
Alice set Gussie to one side. “Well, me and Gabby got to go help Mavis if we want money at the end of this camp. So y’all better get done with your fussin’.”
Retta poured a cup of coffee and took a sip. Leave it to the youngest one in the whole bunch to take charge and end the fight.
She carried the mug to her room and set it on the dresser, stopping to take a sip in between getting dressed and putting her room to rights. She tossed the shirt she’d been wearing the day before in the hamper and got a whiff of Cade’s shaving lotion. Dragging it back out, she pressed it to her nose, and all the emotions of that steamy makeout session came flooding back.
“Retta, it’s almost time for me and Gabby to leave. Can you braid my hair? I can do it, but it’s not very pretty.” Alice’s voice came through the closed door.
“Of course,” Retta said. “I’ll be right out.”
She had one side of Alice’s hair done when her phone rang. She dropped th
e brush and worked the phone up from her hip pocket. There was a picture of Cade that she’d secretly snapped a couple of days before.
“Good mornin’,” she said.
“We’ve got a major problem. Mavis sprained her wrist last night. Can you and the girls help out in the kitchen? She swears she can do it with just two girls, but I don’t want her to have to.”
“Of course we can. Are you sure it’s not broken? Did she see a doctor?”
“Skip took her to the emergency room and they did an X-ray. It’s just a bad sprain. It was late when they got back or I would have called then.”
“No problem. I’ll be there in five minutes with my whole crew of girls,” she said and hit the end button.
“What was that?” Alice asked.
“Okay girls.” Retta raised her voice. “Listen up. Mavis sprained her wrist and needs help, possibly for the rest of the time we are here, but that does not mean you won’t have other things to learn to do. This morning we’re all going to work together to get breakfast on the table for everyone, and if I hear one mean word, the black marks behind your names will double.”
Gabby’s eyes went to the board where she already had a couple of big fat checks. She nodded without a word and jerked on her sandals. “I’m ready. I already got my hair put up ’cause we can’t work in the kitchen unless we have it out of our faces.”
Faith came from her room with her purple-streaked hair in two high dog ears that had been braided. “I heard you and I’m ready.”
“I expect you all to work together. You know your way around the kitchen a little bit so be nice to each other and do what Mavis says without attitude,” Retta said.
“Yes, ma’am,” All four voices said at the same time.
Mavis fussed the minute they all paraded through the back door. “I told Cade I could do this with just two girls.”
“We like helpin’.” Alice tiptoed and got an apron from the hook and tied it around her tiny waist.
“Yes, we do, and we need to learn to work together,” Retta said.
“Okay, then, let’s get to it.” Mavis nodded. “Sausage gravy, biscuits, scrambled eggs, and pancakes, and when breakfast is done, we’ll start dinner. Then you’ll have a few hours before we put supper on the table.”
Mavis gave orders and they followed them. Everything was under control when Cade popped his head in the kitchen. “How’s it goin’ in here, ladies?”
“We got this,” Mavis told him. “Don’t worry.”
Faith looked up from the table she and Sasha were setting. “You just keep them boys out of our kitchen.”
“I think I can manage that.” Cade grinned.
“Good,” Mavis said. “Now let’s get busy or they’ll all be whinin’ about starvin’ to death.”
“Thank you, again,” Cade whispered to Retta.
Mavis pointed at Faith. “Okay, girl, you get out two pounds of sausage and the big cast iron skillet. Gabby, you and Alice put out the jellies, jams, syrup, and picante sauce for the eggs. Sasha, you get three dozen eggs from the refrigerator and crack them into a bowl, then get out the whisk and work on them until they are fluffy. Retta can make biscuits and then stir up pancake batter.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Faith nodded, seriously.
The morning flew by because she and the girls went straight from cleanup after breakfast to helping Mavis get meat loaves and blackberry cobblers ready for the noon meal.
“You really do have magic hiding somewhere,” Cade whispered in Retta’s ear on one of the several trips he made through the kitchen that morning. “I’m wonderin’ if you’d be willin’ in a couple of days to shift things around and put two of the boys in the kitchen. That way they can learn a little about cookin’, too.”
“Great idea,” she said.
“We don’t like it when y’all whisper,” Faith said.
“Why?” Cade asked.
“Because it means you don’t want us to hear and that you’re plannin’ something we ain’t goin’ to like,” Faith said.
“It’s a surprise that I’ll tell you about later,” Retta told her.
Faith groaned. “I hate surprises.”
“Would you get on out of here?” Mavis popped him with a dish towel. “We’ve got work to do. This afternoon you can teach them how to throw a football or whatever else you got planned. But right now they’re all busy, including Retta.”
“So you girls still want to learn to play football?” Cade slowly made his way out of the kitchen.
“Of course they do,” Retta answered, but they were all nodding.
“You going to step in as quarterback?” he asked.
“Maybe. Depends on whether any one of these four can throw a good spiral,” she answered. “How about you?”
“Oh, honey, I intend to lead my boys to a victory over your girls. It’ll be as exciting as winning the OU/Texas game.” The cleft in his chin deepened and her pulse shot up a couple of notches. “See y’all in the pasture about two o’clock?”
“We’ll be there, but get ready to lose.” Retta managed to get the last word in.
Cade stood about twenty yards from the tire dangling from ropes on the old swing frame. “Okay, kids, you’ve got to hold the ball like this. Get a firm grip on the end with either one or two fingers on the laces and the other two toward the end. Leave some air in your hand. And when you let go of the ball be sure that your thumb is down after the snap. When you play baseball you want your thumb up, but with football it’s the opposite. Like this.” He showed them the correct way to hold the ball so that it wasn’t touching the palm of his hand and then he threw a perfect spiral through the middle of the tire.
Justin caught the ball from the other side of the tire and threw it back to Cade.
“You see that, guys. That was a perfect throw,” Cade said.
“That’s what I’ve been doin’ wrong,” Kirk said. “Nobody told me about the air or the thumb. Can I try?”
“Line up, boy, girl, boy, girl,” Cade said. “Kirk can go first and then he goes to the back of the line. The ones who aren’t throwing can learn from the other’s mistakes or victories.”
Kirk took the ball from Cade and held it just like Cade said but he forgot to snap it with the thumb down and it went wide. Justin ran to the other side of the tire and slung it back at Cade.
“Know what you did wrong?”
“It was the thumb.” Kirk nodded.
“You can do it, Kirk. You got to remember, that’s all,” Benjy said. “You can read a football book or watch it on YouTube.”
“Can you do it?” Kirk asked.
Faith had a turn and almost made it through the tire, and then it was Benjy’s turn. Cade thought for a minute Benjy might ask for a tape measure to get things exact, but he did just what he’d been told and the ball went through the tire.
“Yes, I can, Kirk, but it was not perfect,” Benjy answered.
When they’d all had a turn and missed, Cade handed the ball to Retta. She palmed it and turned around to the kids. “This is not a basketball but remember you control it with your fingertips just like you do a basketball. You don’t dribble with your palm, do you?”
Man, that woman could steal his heart for sure, Cade thought. She could cook and she knew the finer details of football and evidently basketball too.
“No, ma’am,” Faith said.
Retta drew back and the ball went smack through the center. “If this had been a real game, it would have sailed right into my man’s hands and he would have run it all the way for a touchdown.”
“Hummph.” Gabby giggled. “Is Cade your man?”
Cade chuckled and glanced over at Retta to see two high spots of color dotting her face. “What does being your man entail?”
“Oh, hush,” Retta whispered.
“You are blushing,” he teased.
“I am not. It’s hot out here,” she protested.
“Weatherwise or otherwise?” he asked.
“Both,” sh
e answered honestly. “Now stop talking to me or they’ll think we’re flirting.”
“We are.” He chuckled again and moved over to help Alice try a second time.
That evening after supper Retta was prepared to read a book while the girls talked to families, foster or otherwise. She took it with her to the living room but got so engrossed in Alice’s actions that she didn’t get past the first page.
The little girl had a towel wrapped around her wet hair and she talked to her sisters first and then her mother. She walked around the bunkhouse talking at warp speed trying to get every single detail in about her week at the ranch, but what she was most excited about was the fact that she’d thrown the football through the middle of the tire. When it was time to hang up, she told every one of them that she loved them.
Then it was Faith’s turn, and she plopped down on the other end of the sofa and poked in the numbers to the foster care home. “Hello, Marsha. This is Faith and I’m calling from the ranch.”
Retta was close enough that she could hear every word.
“Do you like it?”
“It’s okay,” Faith said. “I’m learning to cook so I can help when I get home.”
“That’s good. Mind what they tell you. Talk to you next week.”
“Okay. Good-bye,” Faith said.
The room was totally silent for a long, pregnant moment. “And that’s the joy of living in a foster home,” she said as she handed the phone back to Retta and headed up to her room.
“Don’t leave.” Retta hurried into the bedroom, grabbed her cell phone, and dialed the number on the bunkhouse phone. When it rang, she nodded toward Faith.
“I don’t need your charity.” Faith’s chin shot up several inches.
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