Cowboy Summer

by Joanne Kennedy

  A car door slammed.

  “Shit!” Jess hissed. “Your stuff’s still in the bathroom!”

  Cade glanced wildly around the room, then lunged for the bed. “Here. I found my hat.”

  She couldn’t help laughing. “That’s not going to help! Hold on.”

  She raced downstairs, disappearing into the bathroom as the front door swung open.

  “Jess?”

  “Just a minute!”

  Jess snatched up Cade’s jeans, boxers, and socks. She glanced wildly around for his T-shirt, then remembered tossing it onto the front steps.

  Oh no.

  “I saw Cade’s truck outside. Is he in the barn?”

  “I don’t think so.” Jess clutched the clothing to her chest and did her best to sound happy and welcoming as she raced back upstairs to the bedroom. “You guys are home early! Hold on. I’ll be right down.”

  Shit, shit, shit.

  She was halfway up the stairs when she remembered Cade’s boots, standing in a corner by the tub. They’d be a dead giveaway if her folks used the bathroom—and they would, after their long car ride.

  Racing back down into the bathroom, she slipped on the shiny tile and went down. Grimacing and clutching her knee, sure a bruise would blossom by morning, she grabbed the boots—and dropped the bundle of clothing.

  Reaching on the run, she grabbed his clothes, except for one stubborn sock that escaped her grasp. Trying to catch it as it fell, she slipped again. This time, she caught herself, but the tap dance took its toll. Could a hip get dislocated? It sure didn’t feel right.

  She limped through the bedroom as fast as she could, but Molly was already in the downstairs hallway. Startled, Jess raced past her and up the stairs, stumbling when Cade’s boxers escaped from the bundle and draped themselves over the steps like an expiring damsel. Sweeping them back into her arms, she looked down at Molly, opening and closing her mouth like a starving goldfish, struggling to find something to say.

  “Did everything go okay while we were gone?” Molly asked.

  Jess couldn’t help it. She had to smother a laugh. Cade, still in the bedroom, didn’t, and she prayed her stepmother hadn’t heard him. She longed to throw a boot at the door but smiled brightly down the stairs instead.

  “Oh yeah.” She tucked Cade’s clothes behind her back as her father stepped up beside Molly. “Everything went fine.”

  Still smiling, she bent to pick up the boxers—and dropped a boot.

  Thumpity thump, down the stairs it fell, end over end over end. Eternity seemed to stretch on and on before it landed at her father’s feet.

  Her dad picked up the boot.

  “Well, hey. This is nice. It’s a Tony Lama, right?”

  Chapter 44

  Heck turned Cade’s boot over and over in his hands, examining the stitchery while Jess, still frozen at the top of the stairs, cursed her dad’s passion for fine leatherwork and tried to roll Cade’s clothes into a bundle behind her back.

  “I didn’t know you had these, hon.” Propping one foot on the bottom step, her dad set the boot beside it. “Dang, honey. I think this’d fit me.” He chuckled fondly. “You always did have big feet, even when you were just a snippet.”

  Jess glanced down at her stepmother and realized Molly knew exactly what was going on. The woman was turning from red to purple as she struggled to hold in her laughter. Clawing through her mind for a distraction, Jess found one.

  She executed her best spoiled-princess hair flip and scowled. “My feet aren’t big, Daddy! And I’m not a snippet.” Blessing her dad’s inexhaustible capacity for tactlessness, she did her best to channel outrage. “Get with the program, Daddy. Women are not objects. It’s the twenty-first century.”

  Heck held up Cade’s boot. “Sorry, hon. You want your boot back?”

  “I don’t care about any old boot. I care about being treated like a human being.”

  Before she was half done answering, he tossed the boot up the stairs. Startled, she reached out to catch it and dropped Cade’s clothes. The bundle unrolled to reveal each item in turn—first Cade’s jeans, then a sock, and then the boxer shorts. Cade was a serious guy, but his boxers were another story. This particular pair was red, with little white hearts all over them.

  The final sock was kind of an anticlimax.

  “Oh, Jess!” Molly shook her head, looking grave. “Are you doing Cade’s laundry again? That man ought to take care of that himself.” She gave Jess a wink. “Get with the program, hon. It’s the twenty-first century.” She let out a long, theatrical sigh. “Men can do their own laundry. Right, Heck?”

  Heck nodded. “Sure. I mean, I guess so.” He gave her a sheepish grin. “Never tried.”

  “Yeah, because I always did it,” Jess said.

  She frantically gathered Cade’s clothes, but her panic had given way to laughter. Her folks loved Cade, and she suspected they’d cheer if they found him naked in her bedroom. Still, it seemed disrespectful to parade your afternoon delight in front of your parents.

  Slamming the bedroom door behind her, she closed her eyes and let Cade’s clothes fall at her feet while she gained control of her laughter.

  “I think I love my stepmother,” she gasped. “I couldn’t ask for a better friend.”

  Cade sat naked on her bed with his cowboy hat clamped strategically over his unmentionables. “Thought you’d never get here.”

  The dog, looking equally aggrieved, sat at his feet. Jess’s laughter rose again, and she doubled over, giggling helplessly as he set aside the hat and grabbed for his clothes.

  Sitting on the bed, she watched him dress, laughter bubbling like a creek after an all-day rain. But her heart was turning toward more serious thoughts, moved by the reverse striptease of a handsome cowboy who made love well up in her heart and overflow, warming her to her toes.

  * * *

  Cade managed to smother Jess’s giggles with a couple of well-placed kisses before she headed downstairs. He waited a while so they wouldn’t emerge from the bedroom together. Then he and Boogy took the back stairs, Boogy moping outside the back door while Cade entered from the hall.

  Molly, still in a rollicking mood, pointed at him and burst into a fit of giggles. He looked down at his clothes, wondering if he’d left his fly open or buttoned his shirt crooked.

  “You’re fine,” Molly said. “It’s just so funny when you kids try to act all innocent.” She lowered her voice. “For heaven’s sake, Cade, we left you two alone on purpose! Just tell me it went well.”

  He gave her a quick thumbs-up.

  “Best news ever.” Standing on tiptoe, she pulled his face down and gave him a smack on the cheek. “Although I thought you were taking Jess to your house.”

  “Yeah, well.” He felt his face go hot. “We never made it.”

  As the two of them walked into the kitchen, he did his best to act casual, clapping Heck on the back and shaking his hand in greeting.

  “How was Shady Acres?”

  “Great,” Heck said.

  Cade strained to hear any false note in his neighbor’s hearty tone, but Heck sounded like himself. The man wasn’t much of an actor, so apparently Shady Acres truly was “great.”

  “It was a little rough at first. Got myself into a poker game at the clubhouse and lost a bundle to those vagina men.”

  Cade shot Jess a questioning look.

  She giggled. “It’s Viagra, Dad.”

  “Whatever. They’re sharp, even with those four-hour erections. Thought we might’ve lost our down payment ’til Molls joined the game. Tell ’em what happened, Molly.”

  “I won it all back, plus a little more.” Molly sat down and reached for the bread basket, constructing a sandwich as if there was nothing remarkable about a schoolteacher trouncing a bunch of men at poker. “I had to punish those guys for having
the nerve to take Heck’s money.”

  “You’re a card sharp?” The idea of Molly, with her fluffy hair and pink tracksuit, raking in the pot at an all men’s poker game made Cade smile.

  “I used to play with one of the boys I tutored—a third grader on the autism spectrum.” She squirted mustard on her bread in looping curlicues. “It turned out he didn’t need my help with math skills or probability.” Spearing slices of ham from the plate of cold cuts, she laid them across the mustard like a Subway sandwich artist. “He ended up tutoring me.”

  “I think she counts cards,” Heck said proudly.

  “Are you allowed to go back?” Jess asked.

  “Oh sure,” Heck said. “They want a rematch. Couldn’t believe a woman could soak ’em like that, so they’re convinced it was a fluke.”

  Molly chuckled. “Those who question history are doomed to repeat it.”

  The phone rang, and Jess raced to the hallway. She was gone for a few minutes, and when she returned, her face was pale.

  “Who was that?” Cade asked.

  She gave him a startled look. “Oh, nothing. Nobody.” Scanning the table, she lunged for the glasses of ice water Molly had set at her place and Heck’s.

  “Hey,” Heck said. “That was mine.”

  “It was just water, though.” Jess speed walked back to the table and grabbed her own glass, shooting Cade a wide-eyed glare. “That’s not special enough. It’s a big day, right? We need to drink something fancy!”

  Her chirpy tone was as convincing as her phony smile.

  “I’m not sure what you’re celebrating, hon.” Molly gave her an impish grin. “Would you like to tell us about it? You seem awfully happy.”

  Heck looked puzzled. “We don’t do fancy. Gimme my water back.”

  Jess ignored him, bending over to rummage in the refrigerator. Cade stared a moment before he remembered his manners.

  “Ah, you need some help?”

  “I’m fine.” She emerged, waving a green bottle in the air. “I found just the thing!” Bustling to the counter, she fiddled with the bottle for a bit, then put it between her legs and grimaced as she tugged desperately at a plastic cork.

  “Jess, be…”

  There was a loud pop, and the cork shot across the room, hitting the ceiling hard enough to send a small shower of plaster cascading to the floor.

  “Champagne!” Ignoring the damage, Jess waved the bottle. “We’re celebrating, right? Those folks made an offer on the ranch, and you two found a place you like!” Setting the bottle on the table, she raced to a cupboard and pulled out wine glasses. “Too bad we don’t have champagne flutes. Then we’d be really fancy!”

  Heck picked up the bottle. “This isn’t champagne. It’s sparkling grape juice Molly bought for New Year’s last year.” Turning the bottle in his hands, he squinted at the label. “Matter of fact, she mighta bought it the year before or the year before that. It’s expired. Might actually be champagne now.” He sniffed the neck of the bottle. “Or vinegar.”

  “Daddy.” Jess started to wind up her princess act, then realized she shouldn’t make her family drink expired grape juice. “How ’bout soda? Come on, who likes Mountain Dew?”

  Molly and Heck glanced at Cade, who gave them a shrug, but he wasn’t as puzzled as he tried to look. He suspected the phone call had been from the water authority, warning Jess about the death dirt lurking in the well. In all the excitement and nakedness, he’d forgotten all about it.

  Cade followed Jess out to the garage, where a spare fridge held water, soda, and beer. “Was that the well inspector?”

  “It sure was.” Jess glanced at the door and dropped her voice to a whisper. “He said the water has E. coli in it and lots of other stuff.”

  “Did he say what it’s from?”

  “He said maybe an animal got in there and drowned, but I don’t see how. Daddy’s got bricks on the well box so nothing can get in.” She gave him a wide-eyed, innocent look. “Maybe whoever did all that other stuff did something to the well.”

  Cade rolled his eyes. “Yeah, maybe.”

  She didn’t seem to catch his sarcasm, so he grabbed two Cokes while she snagged a Mountain Dew for her father and one for herself.

  “You have to tell your folks,” Cade said.

  “I know. I just wanted lunch to be nice, with no bad news, you know? Dad seems so happy.” She sighed. “I can’t believe something else went wrong. We’ll never get this place sold.”

  They really needed to have a talk. She needed to see how important it was for her dad to get the ranch sold—even if it went to the Swammetts. Cade didn’t much like them for neighbors, but maybe that would be the push he needed to get in touch with John Baker, see if that job was still a possibility. Maybe Jess could go with him. Maybe the hotel chain she worked for had a location nearby.

  Maybe turtles had wings.

  “I’ll check the well after lunch, okay?” Cade turned at the door. “Whatever it is, we’ll get it fixed.”

  “Thanks,” she said. “I’ll help.”

  Yeah, I’ll bet. They’d have a chance to talk—really talk—and straighten everything out. Surely, she’d admit to whatever she’d done to the well and all the other pranks. Surely, she’d stop playing this game.

  Because it had to be her, and it bothered him that she wouldn’t admit it. Was this part of what she’d learned in the city—how to lie without blinking? Jess had always been smart, and she’d always been mischievous, but she’d been open and honest, too.

  “Cade?” She looked puzzled.

  He realized he’d been staring at her for what, five minutes? Without saying a word?

  “Nothing.” He smiled. “You’re just pretty.”

  She smiled back, but his heart sank. Now he was being dishonest.

  This couldn’t go on. They were going to have to have that talk, and the sooner, the better.

  Chapter 45

  The well was housed in a wooden box Heck had fashioned out of scrap lumber. As Jess began removing the concrete blocks stacked on the lid to keep out animals, she swatted an eager Boogy out of the way.

  “He smells something,” she said. “Guess dogs like death dirt.”

  Cade pitched in, removing one block, then another. “So some critter took these off, unlocked the top, climbed inside, and drowned itself?” He gave her a teasing grin. “Must have been a bear. A really smart one.” He put on a goofy Yogi Bear voice. “Smmmarter than the average bear!”

  Jess wasn’t amused. “Obviously, somebody’s messing with us. Somebody human.” She glanced up at her parents’ bedroom window, which overlooked the well. “Nobody could have snuck in and done this at night, though. Molly’s a really light sleeper. I’ve caught her way after midnight, roaming around the house humming to herself. I think she likes late-night snacks.”

  Removing the last block, they lifted the heavy lid and peered down the long vertical tube of the wellhead. Boogy propped himself up on the side, sniffing for a good whiff of death dirt, then leaned inside and snatched a torn cardboard box.

  “Oh no, you don’t!”

  The dog raced away with Cade in pursuit. By the time he snatched Boogy’s trophy from his drooling jaws, both were out of breath. Staring in disbelief for a moment, Cade burst into laughter. “Gorton’s frozen fish sticks.”

  “What?”

  He handed her the box while Boogy followed it with his eyes. “It’s a fish sticks carton.” Bending down, he sniffed at the well opening, then jumped backward, rubbing his nose. “Never liked those things, and I like ’em a lot less now.”

  Jess didn’t particularly want to reacquaint herself with the death dirt smell, but she figured she ought to check. One hesitant sniff was enough. “I didn’t notice it smelled fishy, but now that I know…”

  Cade leaned over the box. “Ugh. Here’s a stick that did
n’t make it in.” Without thinking, he picked up the breaded morsel and tossed it over his shoulder. Boogy, eyes alight, snatched it out of the air and swallowed it in one smooth motion.

  “Oh, Boogy.” Jess felt a little green. “That’s bound to come back up.”

  They worked together to replace the heavy lid without losing any fingers or crushing Boogy’s nose, then collapsed together against the well house.

  The two of them sat side by side among the wildflowers, staring at the sky. They’d always been comfortable sharing silence, but Jess didn’t feel comfortable today. Cade kept glancing at her, taking a breath as if he was about to speak, then looking away.

  “What?” she finally said.

  He sighed. “I just need you to tell the truth, Jess. Nobody else could have done this.”

  He was acting like some stern schoolteacher, like she was a naughty child telling a lie. Jess raked her hair back from her face, clenched it into a tight ponytail, and gave it a tug.

  “I told you, it had to be Amber Lynn.”

  He laughed. “She’s just a little slip of a thing. She could never move those blocks.”

  “Oh, I see.” She stood and hoisted a brick onto the well house. “And I’m an elephant.”

  “You’re a goddess.” He grinned, as if everything was just fine between them. “And a pretty tough one.”

  There’d been a time when she’d have taken that as a compliment, but he was still accusing her of lying. Besides, the “little slip of a thing” comment stung.

  “I doubt Amber Lynn knows what a well looks like,” he said, rising to help her replace the blocks. “She probably thinks faucets are magic. Besides, how did she get Hermy in the gazebo? She’s pretty helpless when it comes to ranch reality.”

  A tear trailed down Jess’s cheek, because dammit, she always cried when she was mad. She reached up to bat it away, but he beat her to it, running the back of one finger down her cheek.

  “Hey, it’s nothing to cry about.” The smile faded, the gray eyes turning grave. “Just trust me, Jess. Tell me.”