Cowboy Seeks Bride (14 page)

The morning hadn’t started off like Friday the thirteenth. Haley had awakened to the sounds of Coosie cooking, the fresh aroma of sausage frying, coffee boiling in the blue granite pot, and Eeyore standing under the tree a few feet away, keeping watch over her.

She had looked across six feet of spring grass to see Dewar propped up on one elbow, a grin on his face, and the sun rising behind him. In the soft golden glare she barely caught the slow wink, but the blush that it caused burned her cheeks. Dewar could relay more with a wink than some men could with a candlelit dinner for two in a fancy restaurant.

Breakfast was over, dishes put away, and the campfire stomped out when she whistled for Apache. And that’s when the day went to hell in a handbasket. She barely got him saddled when the dark clouds rolled over the beautiful sunrise and thunder rolled over in the southwest. Lightning streaked through the sky, and Eeyore snorted disapproval.

“It’s all right, boy. We’ve ridden in rain before and it didn’t melt either of us. I don’t suppose it will this time, either, but nothing says we have to like it, does it?”

She finished saddling Apache, put her slicker on, and settled into the saddle just as the first big drops of rain splattered against the yellow slicker.

“Worked the sore out yet?” Coosie asked from the wagon.

“Pretty much. After two weeks, it should be gone, shouldn’t it?” she asked.

A loud clap of thunder made them both duck their heads.

Coosie laughed out loud. “That one parted my hair.”

Haley looked at his big round bald head and cracked up. “I think it scared any hair from growing for the next ten years.”

“It faded the red in yours.” Coosie still laughed.

She stuck her tongue out at him. “Since it’s raining and you made fun of my hair, you have to talk to me to atone for your sins.”

“Well, it is redder when the sun shines on it and sayin’ so is not sinnin’, young lady. So start with the questions and we might find something I’ll talk about, but then again, maybe we won’t. I’m not telling you stories that you should be asking Dewar about. And besides, you should be riding up front with him and talking to him all day anyway, not lingerin’ back here with the old chuck wagon driver. I bet his feelings are hurt.”

“Why would you say that?” she asked.

“Well, honey, any old cowboy worth his salt can see that you two got a thing for each other and if you really want to hear about him and his family, then spur that horse and ride up there beside him where you belong.”

The cows moved slowly in the rain and nothing the cowboys could do hurried them. The old longhorn bull decided the pace would slow down and by damn, it did.

After the first few huge drops, the rain settled into a soft drizzle. The lightning passed over them, taking the thunder with it to rattle its way toward the northwest. From what Dewar said that morning, they were moving southeast of Enid that day.

Enid was one of those towns that had been settled during the Oklahoma Land Run long after the railroads had put an end to cattle runs, but since it was so flat, she could well imagine that during the cattle trail days there would have been a store sitting just over there. It would sell basics for the cowboys like tobacco and whiskey.

Mercy, but she was glad that Dewar didn’t chew. She hated the smell of any kind of tobacco. A good shot of whiskey on his breath wouldn’t be bad, but her nose snarled at the idea of chewing tobacco.

“Well, why aren’t you up there with him?” Coosie asked.

“I haven’t been invited,” she said.

“Can’t see a headstrong redhead like you waitin’ for a formal invitation. Guess I was all wrong about you havin’ a backbone and bein’ sassy.”

“No you weren’t,” Haley said quickly.

Coosie chuckled. “I heard that you got Finn to open up some the other night. That’s a good thing. Man needs to talk that kind of experience out of his soul or else it will eat him alive and leave nothing but a hollow shell of a man.”

“He’s a good man and he was doing his job. I think losing that woman that he loved was as hard as the job,” she said.

“Probably so. So did Sawyer tell you all about his woman or did Rhett talk about that sissified ponytail?”

“They did not,” she said.

Coosie smiled. “Well, then you better get your questions lined out for another night if you want to get inside them boys’ heads and get them to talkin’.”

“Come on, Coosie. You talk to me. I’m bored.”

“Girl, you’d best not be sayin’ that too loud out here on the cattle drive. It’ll come back around and bite you on the butt real quick.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means that you’ll have your hands so full you’ll wish for a nice quiet ride without no problems. You ever think about gettin’ a cowboy for Christmas, Haley?”

She was glad for the slicker hood and hoped it covered the burning crimson filling her cheeks. “Of course not. What would I do with a cowboy?”

How in the devil did he tell so little and suddenly have a dozen questions of his own, anyway?

“Any chance when you sit on Santa’s knee this year that’s what you’ll be thinkin’ about?” he asked.

“Christmas and Santa are both a long way down the road, Coosie,” she said.

“Well, it’ll sneak right up on you so you’d best be thinking about it. And while you are thinkin’, if you ain’t goin’ to do right by him, don’t do at all. He’s a good man. I’d hate to be in your shoes if you break his heart.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Just what I said. His sisters are pretty damn protective of him and I’d sooner face off with a mountain lion as those two, especially if they gang up on you. Gemma rode broncs professionally and Colleen used to crawl up on a bull’s back pretty often.”

“You tryin’ to scare me?”

“I’m just telling you that you need to be careful. Toyin’ with a cowboy’s heart can get yours broken in the process.”

Haley let that sink in as she rode along. What would Dewar’s wife be like? Would his sisters like her or would they hate her?

A brilliant shade of jealousy replaced the scarlet in her cheeks. The idea of another woman touching him, holding him, making wild love with him, or worse yet—the very thought of him braiding flowers into another woman’s hair—that was just plumb downright damn wrong.

An airplane flew over their heads and she was amazed for a few minutes until she remembered that she really did live in the modern world where jet airplanes and even little biplanes like the one right above them existed. The days of the cattle trail drives from southern Texas to the railroad in Kansas had long since passed and what they were doing was just the forerunner of a reality television show.

An old Western movie on television had started this whole thing. When the credits rolled after the show, she wondered if modern-day cowboys could stand up under the pressure of the primitive lifestyle. Would they be able to give up the real world where airplanes took people all the way across the country in half a day? Could they learn to live in a world where traveling involved going thirteen to fifteen miles in a day that lasted from sunup to sunset?

The rain stopped as suddenly as it started and the sun popped out from behind the clouds. She shed her slicker and handed it off to Coosie without getting out of the saddle. And the next phase of Friday the thirteenth went into effect.

The airplane had made her homesick for her office, for her friends, and for her family. She wished she was on it and headed back to Dallas to a civilized lifestyle. She sighed and argued with herself. One old gray jackass did not a ranch make! She and Dewar were as different as night and day in the real world. Sure, they were hotter than a wildfire coming across the plains when it came to sex; however, wildfires burned down everything in their pathway and then died. Even knowing that, it was still impossible to walk away from Dewar and too late to stop her stupid heart from wanting him.

Dark clouds covered the sun and lightning zipped through the sky. The thunder was loud and shrill and the cows picked up their step to a faster walk. Eeyore brought up the rear, urging the cattle along with his snorts. A slow drizzle started again and another flash of lightning ripped through the sky and met the ground in a crackling pop.

The hair on Haley’s neck tingled and her toes felt heavy. She rode up beside the wagon and Coosie handed her the slicker without a word. She donned it but left the hood back, waiting for the rain.

Dewar and Stallone looked like a black and yellow flash as he rode hell bent for leather from riding point to the rear of the drive. “Everyone all right back here?”

“We’re fine,” Coosie said. “That last lightning gave us a start. Landed right over… huh, oh!” he said.

Dewar’s eyes went in the direction that Coosie pointed.

“Did it hit a cow?” Haley asked.

Dewar slid out of the saddle.

He pulled Haley off the horse and held her. “It hit your donkey. Thank God it didn’t hit you.”

She heard him loud and clear.

Eeyore was dead.

But the only thing that registered was the hoarseness in his voice when he said he was glad it hadn’t hit her.

“We can’t leave him in the pasture like that.” Her voice sounded like it came from a long dark tunnel.

“It’s raining,” Dewar said.

“But we can’t…” she started.

Dewar stepped back. “You are right. We’ll dig a hole and bury Eeyore for you, Haley.”

Buddy took first shift with the shovel and dug down about six inches in the mud before handing it off to Coosie, who hit dry dirt in another inch. After that Finn took over and the rain completely stopped and the sun came out again. He removed his slicker and put his back into the work. By the time Dewar took the last turn, the hole was big enough for the six of them to push Eeyore’s body off into it. But when they pushed the donkey gave a heave and rolled his eyes around trying to focus.

“Holy shit!” Haley spit out.

“He was stunned! Anyone think to touch him to see if he was breathing?” Coosie asked.

All six of them shook their heads. Haley dropped down beside the donkey and hugged him tightly. “You aren’t dead. It must’ve hit close to you and didn’t actually get you.”

Dewar picked up the shovel. “We should’ve thought to check him for burns at least. Looks like we’ve got a hole to fill in.”

“I’m glad he’s alive,” Buddy said.

“Don’t get too happy just yet. He hasn’t stood up yet and bad as I hate to be the party pooper here, we might have to put him down,” Finn said.

Haley hugged him tighter. “Come on, Eeyore. You were shocked but it didn’t kill you. Stand up. Somebody go find a coyote so he’ll have a reason to stand up.”

The donkey quivered from nose to tail, but he didn’t make an attempt to get up on his legs.

“You rascal. If you don’t stand up I swear I won’t even let them put you in that hole. I’ll let the damned coyotes gather round your body and eat you for supper. That would be poetic justice for you not even trying,” Haley yelled at him.

Eeyore flopped his head into her lap and snorted.

“No sass. I mean it. Either you get your little gray ass up or the coyotes can have you,” she said.

He held his head up.

Dewar chuckled.

“I’m not carrying you. You’ve got four feet and you can walk on them,” she said.

Eeyore’s eyes stopped rolling around and he looked up at her.

Dewar swore he saw the damned jackass smile.

“Get up!” Haley yelled at him.

Eeyore heaved a huge sigh and stood up, wobbled for a few seconds, then shook it all off with one terrific shudder. He walked around the hole that had been dug for him and then trotted to the cattle and started nibbling on the green grass.

“Ain’t never seen nothing like that before,” Rhett said.

Buddy took the shovel from Dewar and filled in the grave, mounding it up and patting the dirt when he was done.

“I knew she could m-m-make him get up,” he stammered.

“Well, thank you for the vote of confidence.” Haley smiled at him.

“Okay, now let’s have some dinner since we’re stopped and then we’ll herd the cattle into the next pasture. Do you remember if we stay on this man’s land until supper, Dewar?” Coosie asked.

“Yes, we do. We’ll be camping at the far end of it near a farm pond. Hopefully it won’t be a muddy mess,” Dewar answered.

“Sun’s coming out. Got all afternoon to dry up,” Finn said.

Dewar and Haley lingered behind. Haley watched Eeyore to be sure he was all right, and Dewar watched Haley.

“I heard that lightning hit the ground and I was terrified that it had hit you,” Dewar whispered.

Haley wanted to hug him but she couldn’t. “It was pretty fierce and Coosie and I heard the sizzle, but it didn’t even shock me.”

“You were lucky. Another fifteen or twenty feet and it would have been you lying out there on the ground instead of that donkey.”

Haley cocked her head to one side. “Never thought of that.”

At first Haley thought the noise was a helicopter and looked up to see if she could spot it in the sky. Then she figured it was a train rumbling off in the distance, but it kept getting louder instead of fainter.

Then the cows all looked toward the west where the sun was putting on a spectacular show of color as it finished its day’s work. And Eeyore trotted right into the middle of the campsite to stand at her side.

She slung an arm around his neck and scratched his ear. “It’s not thunder, old boy. You aren’t going to get zapped again.”

“He’s going to be a psychotic mess when it really storms again. Think he’ll need to see a jackass therapist?” Finn asked.

“If he does I’ll damn well hire one for him. You want me to make an appointment for you?” she asked.

Sawyer held up his coffee cup. “Touché, Haley.”

“Hey, you don’t get to say that. You haven’t bared your soul yet. It’s not until you tell us all your story like Finn did that you get to say something like that,” she told him.

“Touchy tonight, are we?” Rhett asked.

“Eeyore took the lightning hit for me. If we’d been a few feet on up the road it would have hit me and believe me, if it had I would have been real bitchy tonight instead of just mildly irritable,” she answered. “What is that noise anyway?”

“Four-wheeler,” Coosie said.

He’d barely gotten the words out of his mouth when the machine came to a stop beside the chuck wagon and two people crawled off. A short round man wearing bibbed overalls and a red plaid shirt, a baseball cap, and work boots, and a woman three inches taller than him in jeans, a chambray shirt, baseball hat with a salt-and-pepper-colored ponytail hanging out the hole in the back, and cowboy boots.

“Hello, the camp,” the man yelled.

“He’s always wanted to say that. He’s jealous as hell that he’s not doing a trip like this and he just had to come out here and see y’all.” The woman’s voice had the gravel qualities of a long-time smoker.

“If I hadn’t lost my mind and married you forty years ago I’d be on a run like this,” he grumbled.

“If you hadn’t lost your mind and married me, you’d be a dead fool instead of a common old breathing and snorting fool.”

Coosie laughed. “Y’all must be the ones who own this land. Thanks for letting us stop here for the night and for the grass our cows are eating. Come on into the camp. Would you like a cup of coffee? I’m Coosie, the cook. This is Dewar, the trail boss.” He pointed as he introduced all the crew.

“I’m Raymond and this is my mouthy wife, Loretta,” the man said.

“He’s full of shit, but I love him,” Loretta cackled. She looked over at Haley and said, “I thought me and you might ride back to the house and leave these men to their war stories.”

Loretta edged closer and whispered just for Haley’s ears, “I got a bathroom with a tub and some sweet-smellin’ bubble bath.”

Raymond had found a seat next to Buddy and all the men were already deep in conversation about the lay of the land, cattle, and how much further it was to Dodge City. Haley tied up fresh jeans and underwear in a clean shirt and followed Loretta to the four-wheeler with Eeyore right beside her the whole time.

“Looks like that donkey has taken a liking to you,” Loretta said.

“He got stunned by lightning today, but he’s always been my buddy,” Haley answered.

“They’re like that. Take up with one person pretty often. We got one on the place to take care of the coyotes. He don’t like me a bit, but he follows Raymond around like a puppy. Here, I’ll get on first and you sit right behind me. It’s not a whole lot different than ridin’ a motorcycle except it’s got four wheels and don’t go near as damn fast. Raymond won’t let me have a motorcycle anymore since I wrecked the last one. It was his fault. He made me so damn mad when he flirted with that big-boobed motorcycle momma at a rally that I couldn’t even see the damned road,” Loretta said.

“When did that happen?” Haley asked.

“Oh, ’bout six months ago,” Loretta cackled. “I just barely got this thing broke in. Hang on tight. We’ll see how fast it can go.”

Five minutes later they parked in front of a big, white two-story house with a wide front porch. Two dogs came out to greet them and a couple of gray cats peered through the railing posts. Haley felt like she’d been thrown headfirst through time, air, and space. God almighty, Loretta must have souped-up that four-wheeler to make it run like a bat out of hell.

“Little faster than a horse, ain’t it?” Loretta crawled off the machine and led the way to the house. “Don’t mind the critters. They’re nosy, but they don’t bite. I’ve got a loaf of fresh baked bread, some whipped honey, and a chocolate sheet cake for us to nibble on while we talk, but first you’re having a long bath.”

“What did you do to that machine?” Haley asked.

“I tinkered around with it a little. Scared the hell out of Raymond first time he rode back behind me. That’ll teach him to flirt with big-boobed women. Course, now he won’t let me drive if we go on it together,” she cackled. “Now you scoot on upstairs and get a bath and then we’re going to visit.”

“Thank you,” Haley said as she looked around the wide foyer just inside the front door. An antique buffet with a mirror back sat to her left and a staircase went up at a steep angle on her right. Ahead she saw a door that opened into a living room with lots of big windows facing the east. She imagined sitting on the big, deep blue sofa with a cup of coffee in the morning and watching the sun come up.

Loretta waved her arm in a circle, taking in the whole place. “I was born in this house. My folks gave it to me and Raymond when we married and they moved into a smaller house. We raised all six of our kids here. They’re all married and scattered seven ways to Sunday now, but they come home for Thanksgiving every year. Bathroom is at the top of the stairs. You go on and don’t rush. Use anything you need and if you want something you don’t see holler right loud and I’ll try to find it for you. I’ll get the coffee going. Bet you haven’t had a real bath since you left Texas two weeks ago,” Loretta said.

Haley shook her head. “Creeks and rivers. This is a treat, ma’am.”

Loretta shook her finger. “Don’t you be calling me ma’am. You’re about the same age as my youngest daughter and I’d shudder to think about her out on the trail with all those cowboys, not a woman to talk to, hell, not even a cell phone, and no bathroom. Go enjoy and don’t hurry a bit. Raymond will talk those men’s ears plumb off and fuss because we didn’t stay gone any longer.”

Haley smiled. “I can vouch for the fact there’s not a big-boobed woman out there.”

“I wouldn’t have left him if there had been.” Loretta laughed.

Haley started water running in a deep claw-foot bathtub, poured in some vanilla bubble bath that had been sitting on the vanity, and quickly undressed. She sunk down into the water while it was still only a few inches deep and rolled the kinks from her neck. And then she settled her neck on the sloped back and shut her eyes in deep appreciation. Never again would she take something as simple as a bubble bath for granted, or for that matter, warm water.

The shampoo smelled like vanilla beans and lathered up so well in her hair that she almost swooned. After her bath, she wrapped a big fluffy yellow towel around her body and sat on a vanity stool while she towel dried her hair. She finger combed it and was about to get dressed when Loretta’s voice floated up the stairs.

“Go ahead and help yourself to the hair dryer and curling iron if you want to. It and the hair spray are under the vanity.”

“Thank you,” Haley yelled through the door.

Electricity. Curling irons. Prune skin. A steamy mirror above the vanity. She’d died and gone to heaven and while she was there she fully well intended to float among the clouds as long as she could. Forty minutes later when she came out of the bathroom, she felt like a brand new woman.

“Come on in here and pull up a chair,” Loretta yelled when she heard the stairs creaking.

Haley followed her voice through the door at the back of the foyer into a great room that housed the living area, kitchen, and dining room, separated by rugs on the hardwood floor and a bar in the kitchen.

“This is beautiful,” she said.

“It didn’t always look like this. We had it redone after the kids all left home so we’d have more room when they came back. Raymond says kids are like momma cats. They leave for a while but they come back and bring more with them.” She laughed and motioned toward the bar where she was sitting. “Pull up a bar stool and we’ll have some coffee. Tell me, do you think your reality girls would like a stopover at my house since it’ll be about halfway through their journey? I’d be glad to offer it for them to have a bath.”

Haley’s mind went into overdrive. “What a wonderful idea, Loretta. We could have a contest and the one that got the most points could get to go inside a real house and a real bathroom. But,” she leaned forward and whispered, “do you think Raymond will flirt with them?”

Loretta giggled. “Probably, but that’ll give us a good reason to argue. You do know what happens after you argue, don’t you?”

Haley tilted her head to one side. “What?”

“You have the best damn sex in the world.”

High color filled Haley’s cheeks.

“And that’s even better than a fast four-wheeler,” Loretta said. “Now let’s talk about those cowboys. Good Lord above, I haven’t ever seen such handsome fellows in my life. Well, four of them are sexier than movie stars. That big old cook fellow kind of scares me and the one that stutters is sweet, but he’s not sexy.”

“Coosie and Buddy are sweethearts, but you’re right, they aren’t sexy.” Haley smeared whipped honey on a slice of home-baked bread and bit into it. “Oh my God, this is so good.”

“Thank you. Momma taught me to make bread. I bet it’s the trail boss that’s took your eye, right? Those other three are pretty boys, but he’s about your age and rugged enough to make a woman’s under-britches crawl down to her ankles, right?”

Haley laughed. “He really is that sexy and he has a heart of gold and is so kind it’s scary.”

“Did you know him before you agreed to go on this crazy trail drive with him?”

“Oh, no! I thought the whole thing was an April Fools’ joke and that my daddy, who owns the company that’s sponsoring this thing, would tell me to come back home and we’d have this big laugh. I guess Dewar thought his brother was playing a joke on him too. Only it wasn’t a joke and here we are two weeks into the trip.”

“So you live in the city? You did know how to ride a horse, didn’t you?”

“I live in Dallas and I’d taken a few lessons in riding way back when I was in college, so I knew how to get into the saddle, but that’s about all. I swear, I have calluses on my butt and it was so sore those first few days that I thought I’d die.”

Loretta nodded. “I can well imagine. You didn’t whine or let on though, did you?”

Haley shook her head. “Not one time. They weren’t about to know that I had trouble keeping up.”

Loretta slapped her thigh. “Good girl. Give ’em hell out there for all us women. The reality show won’t be near as interesting to me as your story because those women will have each other to whine and bitch to and you’re out there making the path for them to go on all by yourself.”

“Well, thank you.” Haley grinned.

“Just stating the hard, cold facts. Here, have some more of this bread. You going back to Dallas when this is over or are you and the trail boss going to reach an agreement? Y’all would make some pretty babies together and there could be a reality show after first one showing what happened to the contestants.”

Haley almost choked on the next bite. “I’m going home. But he’s going to keep my donkey and let me come visit him when I have time.”

“Well, praise the Lord, it’s not over when it’s over, is it?”

“Time will tell.” Haley sipped coffee. “This is so nice. Getting to talk to a woman and having coffee out of a glass mug in a real kitchen.”

“Things we take for granted, right?” Loretta said. “How’d you come by that donkey? Did it start out the trip with you?”

Haley shook her head and told the story of the mountain lion or bobcat in the shadows, stalking the herd.

“That the first time y’all was alone out there?”

Haley nodded. “Yes, it was.”

“And the last time?” Loretta asked.

Haley blushed scarlet.

Loretta laughed. “You don’t have to answer that. I’m prying and putting my nose in where it has no business. We live so far out that I only get to visit with other women on Sunday at church and on Wednesday nights at our quilting bee. And besides all that, after raisin’ up six daughters, I’m just naturally nosy.”

Haley didn’t even think before she spoke. “You remind me of my mother. Sometimes I tell her something before I even realize it’s out of my mouth. But no, it’s not the last time we’ve been alone.”

“You ever see that movie
Steel
Magnolias
?” Loretta asked.

“It’s one of my favorites.”

“Remember the scene in the beauty shop when she says she and her boyfriend did things to frighten the fish?” Loretta’s green eyes glittered.

“I do and yes, ma’am, we have. But it’s a secret. I sure wouldn’t tell it in the beauty shop.”

“Neither will I or at the quilting bee, but I will tell that he looked at you all wistful when we left the camp, like he was afraid you’d never come back. And that when we returned, his eyes lit up like a Christmas tree,” Loretta said.

“That’s embellishing the story,” Haley said.

“No, darlin’, that’s telling it just like it happened. You didn’t see his eyes but I did and when we get back, if they don’t light up, I’ll give you that four-wheeler back there and make Raymond walk home. And you can scare the shit out of him when you take him for a ride.” Loretta laughed again.