Cowboy, It's Cold Outside

by Lori Wilde

  “You were so beautiful,” Paige said.

  Grammie waved a hand. “Beauty is fleeting, but you don’t usually appreciate it when you’ve got it. I thought my nose was too long and my thighs were too heavy.” Grammie whacked her upper thigh with a hand. Laughed. “Look at me now.”

  “You’re still beautiful.”

  “And you are such a liar, but I love you for it.”

  “Did you like Vegas?” Paige asked.

  Grammie crinkled her nose. “Too hot and dry. Even though I was born and raised in West Texas where the wind blows like crazy more days than not, I never had windburned skin until Vegas. I kept running out of hand lotion.”

  “I’ve never been.”

  “Sin City is an eye-opener. Not a place to raise kids in my opinion. But everybody oughta visit at least once.”

  Maybe one day, when she was financially solvent, she’d get around to it.

  “Anyway, I met Wayne at the Ali–Patterson fight. Man, that was a night.” A wistful smile plucked her lips. Her grandmother’s short-term memory might be shot, but it was a steel trap when it came to long-ago events.

  “Our eyes met across the ring. And we couldn’t stop staring at each other. We were missing the fight, but we didn’t care. I think my jaw might have dropped open. He winked, and blew me a kiss. When the fight was over, I stayed in my seat and he came over to me. Wayne Newton! I tell you, I thought my heart would stop.”

  “He was a good looking man.”

  “In those days, he still had an adorable baby face,” she said. “And the sweetest smile! It was one of those chemical things between us. Bam! Boom! Right away we were smitten. He asked me out. Neither one of us were in a relationship, so I thought, why the heck not?”

  “What was he like?”

  “A complete gentleman. Funny. Smart. Smiled all the time.”

  “So what happened? Why did things fall apart?” Paige pulled her legs up into the wide-bottomed upholstered chair, sat tailor-style.

  “Wayne was a shooting star and I had no illusions about my abilities to keep him. Women threw themselves at him constantly. He was big-time and I was just a girl from Abilene, Texas, who could dance a little.” Her eyes twinkled in a way that touched Paige’s heart. “But in the meantime, oh my, did we have fun.”

  “How did it end?”

  “We’d been seeing each other for a month and Wayne was wanting more from me.”

  “You mean sex?” They’d never gotten this far in Grammie’s story before.

  “Back then girls didn’t slip so easily into men’s beds. The pill was still fairly new and women didn’t have a lot of reproductive options.”

  “So you didn’t . . . ?”

  She shook her head. “I couldn’t keep him on a string, but I knew if I gave myself to him, I wouldn’t be able to leave, so I broke things off.”

  “Did you regret it?”

  “Not sleeping with him? Not at the time, but if it was nowadays, with all the options you girls have, you can bet your sweet Christmas cookies I would have gone to bed with him. But back then?” She shrugged. “We weren’t as free.”

  “Was it difficult?”

  “What?”

  “Ending things with him.”

  Grammie clasped both hands to her chest. “It broke my heart into a thousand little pieces, but I knew it was for the best. For both of us.”

  “I’m so sorry you got your heart broken,” Paige said, thinking about her ex, Randy, and how she wished she could have been as smart about men as Grammie. “How sad to lose the love of your life.”

  “Oh, Wayne wasn’t the love of my life.” Grammie shook her head. “We had chemistry and lots of fun together and we cared about each other. That month was glamorous and gave me great stories, but the second I met your granddaddy, I knew he was The One. No one in this whole world could ever match my Luke.”

  Paige reached over to squeeze Grammie’s arm. “You were so lucky. Wayne Newton for fun. Granddaddy for happily-ever-after.”

  “I know that.” Grammie smiled and patted Paige’s cheek. “But cheer up. Your true love is out there waiting for you.”

  It was a nice thought. Paige really wanted to believe it, but she’d thought she’d found love before and look how that had turned out.

  Grammie yawned again.

  “I better scoot and let you get some rest.”

  “Will you read me that article before you go?” Grammie pointed at the tabloid. “I hate to think Wayne is cheating on his wife. That’s not the Wayne I knew.”

  “Gossip magazines like to make stuff up to sell papers. I’m sure Wayne is true blue.”

  “Read me the story . . . please.”

  “All right, but just the one article and then you need to sleep.” Paige picked up the magazine and it flopped open to the centerfold.

  There was a handsome long-haired, bearded man wearing a Stetson and a devastating hey-there-girl grin. The header read “Country Crooner MIA in Wake of Band Split.”

  The first paragraph began, “Cash Colton, lead singer for the now defunct band The Truthful Desperadoes, hasn’t been seen in public since his girlfriend, sultry songbird Simone Bishop, threw him over for his best friend and bandmate, Snake Cantrell.”

  The photograph had been snapped by paparazzi. Late night. After some party or another. Ambush shot. Cash looked startled, peeved, and a little drunk. His arm wrapped around a statuesque, big-breasted blonde in killer high heels.

  Simone Bishop.

  The woman was stunning, classic Helen-of-Troy-launching-ships-with-her-face beautiful. High cheekbones. Sloe eyes. Head cocked at a coy angle. A knowing smile, as if she’d been the one to alert the paparazzi to their whereabouts, lifted the corners of her full rich lips, a golden goddess who inevitably trailed broken hearts behind her like confetti.

  Paige should have remembered where she was, flipped right on past the page, gone looking for that article about Wayne Newton. But her gaze was welded to the photograph of the man with enigmatic eyes.

  Specific words floated up at her from the text, almost as if they were bolded, italicized, and glittering hot.

  Crushed.

  Lost.

  Devastated.

  Self-destructive.

  Disappeared.

  He must have loved Simone beyond all measure to be so shattered by their split. Simone had cheated on him with his best friend and bandmate. Not just cheated on him, she’d busted up the band as well. Who wouldn’t be wrecked?

  Paige knew exactly what it felt like to be betrayed by someone you trusted. Her gut did maniacal push-ups, flipping up and down. She read on.

  Colton met Simone at Toby Keith’s house during a pool party three years earlier and he’d been quoted as saying, “The minute I saw her in that bikini, I went straight home and wrote ‘Like the Night’ in forty-five minutes.”

  “Like the Night,” the article went on to explain, was The Truthful Desperadoes’ first chart topping hit, and their first song with Simone as lead singer.

  Wow.

  The minute Paige had seen Cash at the theater all the breath had left her body. Something crazy tightened her chest. Something erratic. Something that had her digging her heels into the floor and pushing back into the chair cushion as nervous as a newbie rider trying to keep a high-spirited horse from stampeding.

  The next paragraph was a quick history lesson.

  Cash was born to a single mom in Rankin, Texas. His mom had big dreams of becoming a country-and-western star. He never knew his biological father, but he was rumored to be a musician, one of his mom’s many boyfriends. His mother died when he was ten, leaving him to be raised by her parents on a broken-down old ranch that cost more money to run than it made. Until he was fifteen, when he ran away from home seeking fame and fortune as a musician.

  She couldn’t begin to imagine what life on the streets had been like for a motherless teen.

  Aww, damn. Poor kid. This time her stomach did the entire P90X workout.


  The article went on to say Cash had gotten a leg up in the business when famed country-and-western singer Freddie Frank, who was also from Rankin, decided to mentor him.

  The reporter speculated about Cash’s current whereabouts at the time of the article. Cash had sold his mansion in Nashville and most of his possessions and he’d completely dropped out of sight. His manager had no idea where he’d gone. Simone and Snake Cantrell both stayed mum on the subject. Various friends and associates that the reporter had contacted, including Freddie Frank, were either clueless or stonewalling.

  Cash’s former housekeeper had said he’d gone to South America and the reporter learned Cash had indeed bought an airplane ticket to Peru and hired a guide to take him up the Ucayali River where intrepid travelers often went on spiritual quests. The reporter speculated that Simone’s perfidy had stymied Cash’s musical mojo and he was desperate to get it back. Simone had been his inspiration and, without her, his talent had vanished. Cash was, the reporter claimed, in a creative tailspin.

  The main question the article posed: Could Cash pull out of the nosedive or was his career over?

  “Read it out loud, please,” Grammie said.

  “Wh-what?” Paige jumped. She’d been so caught up in the article about Cash she’d forgotten where she was and what she was supposed to be doing. Quickly, she leafed through the magazine, found the story on Wayne Newton, and started reading.

  “That proves nothing.” Grammie snorted when Paige finished the article about a mysterious blonde woman Wayne was supposedly caught canoodling with in a Branson, Missouri, restaurant. “Let me see the picture.”

  Paige held up the magazine for her grandmother. It was a photograph of Wayne spliced with the shot of a much younger woman.

  “Ridiculous. That’s clearly Photoshopped.”

  Paige grinned because Grammie was right and because, tonight at least, she was as sharp as the proverbial tack.

  “Gossipmongers,” Grammie muttered. “They’re just trying to stir up trouble.”

  “I’d better get going.” Paige stood. “Before they send Addie to throw me out on my ear.”

  “Yes, yes.” Grammie worried the covers between her knotty fingers. “I don’t like the idea of you walking home alone in the dark.”

  “I’ll be safe. It’s Twilight after all, and my cell phone is charged up.”

  “You never know. Anything could happen. You could fall and twist an ankle.” Grammie’s forehead wrinkled into a frown.

  “I’ll pay close attention to where I’m walking.”

  “Please do. If anything ever happened to you . . .” Grammie’s voice choked up and she pressed a hand over her mouth.

  “Nothing’s going to happen, Grammie. I promise.”

  Her grandmother looked up at her with wide, vulnerable eyes and her bottom lip trembled. “You promise?”

  “Cross my heart.” Paige drew an X over the left side of her chest, then leaned over to kiss Grammie’s forehead. “I’ll be here for you always.”

  Grammie’s eyes closed. She was already falling asleep.

  “Good night,” Paige whispered, tucked the covers around her, and tiptoed out.

  She waved to Addie, who was pushing a linen cart down the hallway, let herself out the back door, and into the night. The sky was clear. Stars glimmered overhead, and there was a quarter moon. Music still played from the town square. “The First Noel.”

  A sweet night. A perfect night.

  And yet, Paige experienced a pang of loneliness, a bittersweet bite. She couldn’t really pinpoint why she was feeling that way. Her heart lay heavy in her chest and her head seemed disconnected from her body.

  She drew the collar of her coat up. Took care on her walk back. She’d almost reached the lake when her cell phone buzzed in her pocket.

  Even though she didn’t recognize the number, it was similar enough to Flynn’s that she automatically answered it.

  Big mistake.

  “Paige MacGregor,” snarled a voice on the other end.

  She wasn’t a liar so she wasn’t going to deny who she was. Her instinct yelled at her to just hang up, but that wouldn’t solve the problem. Squaring her shoulders, she stopped on the promenade at the marina. “Yes.”

  “You owe Megabank forty thousand dollars. Pay up, you deadbeat.”

  “That’s not my debt. I’ve been through this with Megabank. My identity was stolen. Credit cards taken out in my name—”

  “Yeah, right, that’s what all you losers say. Who are you to welch on your debt when honest, hardworking people pay what they owe?”

  Fury blasted through her. “Listen, buddy, you are not allowed to call me this late on a Saturday night.”

  “Ah, so you know the debt collection rules. Only someone dodging their bills would be that savvy.”

  “That’s not true—”

  “Pay up!” He went on to use ugly, threatening language.

  Her chest squeezed and her throat iced up. Even though she had not run up that debt, it had been acquired in her name and she couldn’t help but feel responsible. Straightening it out was an ongoing battle.

  She hung up.

  He called back.

  She blocked the number, but she knew from experience he’d call her back from a different one. Maybe not tonight, but he would call. And Megabank wasn’t the only credit card company trying to collect from her.

  Shaking with anger, she stuffed her cell phone back into her purse, took several long, slow deep breaths.

  Calm down. It was okay. She didn’t owe that money. Eventually her lawyer would make this all go away. When she could scrape the money together to pay him.

  But it had already been six months, and no light at the end of that tunnel. Would she ever again have a normal life? Especially when she was having trouble coming up with her lawyer’s fees.

  Eventually.

  Hang in there. Chin up. This, too, shall pass.

  Platitudes. She wasn’t buying into her own hype because right now, tonight, it felt like the nightmare would never end.

  Chapter 5

  Accelerando: A symbol used in musical notation indicating to gradually quicken tempo.

  Fritzi woke her, as he did every morning since she’d been looking after him, by rudely using Paige’s bladder as a trampoline.

  “Dang it, can’t you just lick my face like a normal dog?”

  Fritzi gave her a dazzling poodle smile that said, Nah, I want you to fully get how much I need to pee. Misery loves company, dontcha know. He did another bounce for good measure and hopped to the floor.

  “Okay, okay. I’m up, I’m up.” Paige groaned and threw back the covers. Six a.m. and still dark outside. Disturbed by the debt collector’s phone call, she hadn’t fallen asleep until long after midnight.

  Yawning, she headed for the bathroom. Fritzi danced around her feet. “I’m gonna be selfish about this. Me first.”

  Fritzi whined.

  “I’ll hurry.”

  She finished up in the tiny bathroom, hit the power button on the coffeemaker she’d loaded up with fresh coffee the night before, slipped on her coat, jammed her feet into house slippers, stuffed a baggie into her pocket just in case, clipped the leash to Fritzi’s collar, and opened the door.

  The poodle pranced ahead of her, nostrils sniffing, head held high.

  She stepped onto the decking, the houseboat swaying gently under her weight, although she barely noticed the movement now. After two months of living on the water, she was finally getting used to the motion.

  White twinkle lights glowed from the marina, cutting through the predawn darkness. Across the lake, lights at Froggy’s, her uncle Floyd’s restaurant, cut through the morning mist. Froggy’s started serving homemade breakfast at six and Paige had a sudden hankering for one of their delicious greasy sausage biscuits.

  “Hell, no,” she scolded herself. “Not with all the cookies you’ve been scarfing down. It’s a banana for breakfast.”

  And maybe, whispere
d the devil on her shoulder, one of Flynn’s delicious caramel apple cookies? Bananas and cookies went so well together.

  No. No more cookies either.

  Fritzi was sniffing the air, eyes blinking, ears laid back, enjoying the breeze. The air smelled of water and fish. Ghostly white-hulled boats bobbed in the quay. Metal moorings clanked. Water lapped softly against the shoreline. A blue jay burred from the cedar copse.

  Paige guided the poodle down the houseboat’s gangplank and over the wooden walkway that ran between boat slips. The leather leash felt smooth and cool in her palm. Fritzi surged forward, surprisingly strong for such a small dog, tugging her toward the grass on the other side of the marina.

  She crested the top step just as a man climbed from the black Land Rover parked at the curb. He was unexpected and enigmatic in the dawn, a raven in a flock of white-winged doves.

  She stopped.

  He stopped.

  They stared at each other.

  He grinned.

  She grinned.

  “I was just thinking of you,” he said, his voice a low, lion-y growl. “And here you are.”

  He’d been thinking about her? Her pulse dashed. Incredible. Impossible. Intoxicating.

  “Here I am,” she echoed.

  Fritzi, just inches from the lawn, whined plaintively and threw all his eight pounds against the leash. Let me at that grass.

  Cash wore faded Levi’s with a hole in the right knee, the same cowboy boots he’d had on the day before, a red flannel shirt, and a brown leather bomber jacket. “Fancy meeting you here at the crack of dawn.”

  “I was about to say the same thing,” she said, wondering if he could hear the erratic pounding of her heart.

  His smile dipped deep, spread up to encompass the corners of his eyes in a friendly crinkle. “Well?”

  “Well, what?” She pushed a fringe of hair from her eyes, blinded a moment by the intensity of that fantastic smile.