Hot Cowboy Nights (5 page)

T
oby refilled his bowl with chili and added a layer of grated cheddar cheese on the top. Despite having known Lizzy in the most intimate ways possible during their hot and heavy fling, he was as nervous as he’d been on his first date back when he was sixteen.

Toby certainly had not expected to be tangled up in drama like this when he came to Dry Creek almost a month before. If anyone had told him that he would be taking Allie’s sister on a fake date and he would not be chasing bar bunnies for at least five weeks, he would have had them committed. Yet here he was, doing just that.

“Are you sure about this? I’ve already had a dozen phone calls telling me that I’m insane for letting Lizzy go anywhere with you. After all, she was engaged and almost married to a preacher.” Allie passed the corn bread around the table.

Deke took the plate from her and handed it off to Toby. “Sorry son of a bitch wasn’t a preacher. He’s a gold digger with a god complex. And Allie, if Lizzy wanted to date Toby as in the real sense of the word, there wouldn’t be a damn thing anyone could do about it. She’s even more headstrong than you are and that’s saying a lot. So you ain’t
lettin’
her do jack shit. She will do whatever she wants to do.”

Blake took two pieces of the warm bread and crumbled it into his chili. “I’m speaking from experience here, brother. Getting close to a woman, no matter if it’s real or not, can backfire.”

Allie slapped Blake on the arm. “I wasn’t pretending to like you.”

“Yes, you were.” Deke chuckled. “No, I take that back. You were pretending not to like him but we could all see that you did.”

Allie’s dark eyes sparkled when she looked at Blake. She was so damn much in love with Blake that it made Toby’s heart yearn to have the same thing.

Whoa, cowboy!
His inner voice made a screeching sound in his head as it hauled up on the reins.
You are not settlin’ down material. You are going to be the old uncle that spoils your brothers’ kids. The ones that are already here and Allie’s baby, too, are going to love you like a grandpa. Slap that shit out of your head about wanting a wife and kids. That boring life ain’t for you.

He dipped into the chili and let the idea fade as quickly as it had appeared, nodding his head in agreement the whole time. The room had gone quiet and he noticed everyone staring at him.

“What? Do I have chili on my shirt?” he asked.

“You were fighting with yourself and you agreed with something,” Deke said.

“It happens. I do it all the time.” Allie smiled. “But back to this Lizzy thing. It’s a good plan, but don’t let it get plumb out of hand. I heard that Sharlene bragged that she’s not giving up and that she’ll knock Lizzy right out of the saddle before the festival.”

Blake laid a hand over Allie’s. “Darlin’, you don’t have to worry about Toby. He’ll never settle down to one woman. If you have to fret, do it about Lizzy, not Toby. And he’s handled overbearing Sharlene-types before.”

“In those days he could love ’em and leave ’em, though. He didn’t have to live in the same town with the woman,” Deke said.

Toby was already tired of talking this situation to death. He wanted to finish his supper, take a shower, and go get Lizzy for their ice cream date. At least this business of a pseudo-girlfriend gave him an escape.

Deke pushed back his chair and carried his bowl to the sink. “Thanks for supper, guys. I’ve still got laundry to do over at my place and some chores to get done. I’ll be gone for a couple of days starting tomorrow. Rodeos are getting geared up.”

“Don’t worry about anything. I’ll take care of your livestock and pets,” Allie told him. “You’ll be back Sunday with no hickeys, right?”

One corner of Deke’s mouth curled in half a smile. “I’ll be home real late Saturday night, maybe even up near daylight on Sunday. I’ll see y’all in church but I don’t make promises about hickeys. How ’bout you, Toby?”

Toby tightened his grip on the spoon to keep from touching the last fading mark Lizzy had put on his shoulder. Thank goodness his shirt covered it.

It wasn’t a real date, but it felt so good that Lizzy put extra care into getting ready for it. It was the first time she’d been out since Mitch broke up with her almost five months ago, on the telephone for God’s sake and on the day of her sister’s wedding and on Valentine’s Day to boot.

She showered, shaved her legs, washed her hair, and applied the whole regiment of makeup. She flipped through the hangers in her closet and chose her best pair of skinny jeans, topped off with an orange tank top. She thought about cowboy boots but the temperature was still in the nineties when she left work, so she picked out a strappy pair of sandals with a small heel.

Too antsy to sit in the living room and wait for the doorbell to ring, she opted to wait on the front porch swing. It had been painted four or five different colors down through the years, but Allie had stripped it down to the original oak wood the year before and applied several coats of varnish. The squeaky chains competed with sounds of singing birds, chirping crickets, and howling coyotes. Occasionally she heard a cow bawling from over on the Lucky Penny. The latter sounded out of place since there hadn’t been livestock over there in at least two or three decades.

The noise of an approaching truck’s engine filled the hot June night long before it appeared in the lane leading from the road up to Audrey’s Place. The sinking sun cast its glow on the shiny black club cab truck as Toby parked outside the yard fence. He stepped out and shook the legs of his creased jeans over the tops of black boots that were almost as shiny as the truck. Every pearl snap on the plaid western shirt sparkled.

He looked so different from the dirty, sweaty cowboy who had appeared in her store earlier that day and yet, both versions were sexy as the devil. His jeans were low slung on his hips and hugged his butt just right. The shirt was a basic navy button down, worn loose over a Luke Bryan concert T-shirt. She couldn’t see his eyes because of the sunglasses and the way his straw hat sat low on his forehead, but she could feel them assessing her from a distance—just like they did when he was propped up on an elbow after a bout of steamy sex on a twin-size bed. That sent a burst of desire surging through her body. She’d have to be very careful or she’d wind up losing control of her better judgment for sure.

He waved. “You aren’t going to keep me waiting. I like that.”

She stood up. “You aren’t keeping me waiting, either. I like that.”

“You’ll have to show me the way to the ice cream place. I haven’t been to Olney yet.” He escorted her from porch to truck with his hand on her lower back. “We’d better make this look real in case there’s anyone sitting in one of those scrub oak trees with binoculars.”

“That was pretty slick of you to ask me right in front of Mary Jo and Lucy,” she said.

“Did I do good?” He grinned.

“Oh, yeah. They’re the best gossip spreaders in the whole town. I imagine that someone has already called Mitch by now, and I heard that Sharlene might put a contract out on me.”

“Isn’t Mitch in Mexico?” He opened the door for her.

She hoisted herself up into the passenger’s seat. “News from here to anywhere in the world travels faster than a speeding bullet.”

“I’ll protect you, darlin’.”

Lizzy giggled. “I can protect myself. It’s you who has the problem. You might be a Dawson but that woman could eat you alive, cowboy.”

“Blake managed to dodge her, and I’m tougher than he is,” Toby countered.

“She’s honed her skills in the past five months, darlin’. You ain’t got a sinner’s chance at the pearly gates,” she told him. “Turn at the next corner. You have to drive a little slower on this route, but it’s a nice ride at this time of year.”

He backed the truck around and followed her instructions. “So tell me, Lizzy Logan, whatever made you go into the retail business for ranchers?”

“I inherited it. Granny and Grandpa had the business before I was even born. Grandpa died and Granny kept us kids so Mama and Daddy could work. He helped run the feed business and also did construction. Mama took over the convenience store. Allie followed Daddy around at construction sites, but I was never interested in hammers and nails and all that. I couldn’t wait to get off the school bus and go to the feed store where Daddy always worked the last two hours of the day,” she said. “By the time we were in high school, Allie was getting a paycheck from the construction business and I was pretty much running the store when I wasn’t in school. After graduation, the guy who’d been minding it for us retired and I took over full time.”

“You ever wish you’d gone to college or done something different?” Toby asked.

“Not one time.”

“Then I have a hard personal question. What in the hell made you think you’d be happy married to someone who was probably going to insist that you stop working and be a full-time preacher’s wife?” he asked.

The question wasn’t one she hadn’t asked herself those first few weeks after Mitch dumped her. Her job was a nine-to-five, six days a week, and pretty often if someone needed a bag of feed or some cattle medicine, she’d open up so they could get it after hours or on Sunday.

“That is definitely a hard question but I don’t have to answer it because I didn’t marry Mitch,” she said.

“Hypothetically?” He pressured.

“I wanted to get away from the stigma of Audrey’s Place so badly, Toby,” she said softly. “Even all these decades later, it’s still known as the old whorehouse. Growing up, it was hard.”

“Why? It’s colorful and it doesn’t make
you
a whore.”

“No but old rumors die hard in Dry Creek,” she said.

He braked so suddenly that the truck tires spun gravel every which way. “Look! Over there up against the mesquite grove. See that big buck and all those does.” His finger shot right under her nose.

Lizzy gasped at the serenity before her eyes. The buck with his head up, not a muscle moving; the does munching away on the grass, knowing they were protected and their babies wouldn’t come to harm. “Look at the fawns,” she whispered. “Aren’t they the cutest things? Sometimes a deer or two comes right up close to the fence at the back side of our property. When we were little girls we used to take a pallet out there and watch for them in the late evening.”

The buck eyed them warily without moving a muscle. The does continued eating the new spring grass, and the fawns romped around unafraid of the strange big black truck.

“He’s protecting his family.” Toby eased his foot from the brake and drove slower.

“My turn to ask questions,” Lizzy said. “What makes you think you’ll be happy in Dry Creek? You are used to being close enough to all kinds of honky-tonks that you can party when you want. What happens when you get bored here?”

“I like to have a good time, Lizzy, but I love to ranch. It’s always been my dream to buy one and build it from scratch. But land prices are high. When the Lucky Penny came up for sale and we found out if we pooled our money we could buy it without a loan, it was a dream come true. I’ll be happy because ranchin’ makes me happy,” he said.

She pondered on that as they crossed the bridge and drove on in to Olney. Would she have found happiness if she did have to give up her store? Would she have simply settled into fitting into the mold that Mitch had carved out for her? When Toby parked in front of the Dairy Queen, she had the answers and they were both a loud hell no!

“Oh. My. God!” she muttered as he laced his fingers in hers and led her inside. “What is
she
doing here?”

“Who? I thought every woman in Dry Creek was at some church meeting tonight,” Toby asked.

“Mitch’s mother and her friends. I haven’t seen her since Mitch and I broke up,” Lizzy groaned.

“Get into character, darlin’,” he whispered seductively, his warm breath creating delicious shivers up and down her spine. “We can sell this. I know we can.”

“Well, hello, Elizabeth,” Mitch’s mother, Wanda, said.

“Elizabeth?” Toby chuckled.

“She hates my nickname,” Lizzy whispered.

Wanda was an elegant woman in her cute little navy blue slacks and matching powder blue sweater set that matched her cold pale blue eyes. Her thick blond hair was styled in the latest feathered back cut and not one single strand was out of place.

“Hello, Wanda.” Lizzy took three steps but didn’t let go of Toby’s hand. “I’d like you to meet my boyfriend, Toby Dawson. You may have heard that on Valentine’s Day his brother Blake and my sister Allie were married.”

“Oh, I do remember Valentine’s Day very well. Poor Mitch was distraught but I told him he had to listen to God. I’m very sorry for the way things turned out with you two, but God knows best and I’m sure that you would have never been happy outside of Dry Creek, Elizabeth. And likewise, Mitch could have never ever lived or reached his potential in that ghost town. Besides that, I’m quite sure you understand that he needs a wife without a questionable background.”

Wanda’s pasted-on smile annoyed Lizzy so badly that she wanted to slap the shit out of the woman and then slap her again for calling her Elizabeth.

Wanda held out a limp hand bedecked with diamond rings on three fingers and nails that had been freshly done in a pale pink polish. “It’s so nice to meet you. Was that Blake or Toby?”

He shook her hand and then dropped it. “Toby, ma’am. My pleasure. Now if you will excuse us, we’re going to share a banana split to celebrate this lovely spring day.”

“I’ll tell Mitch that I saw you and met your new boyfriend, Elizabeth. I can’t wait for him and his new bride to come home this summer. We’re planning a big shower at the church for them. They’ve rented a lovely villa and they need things for it.” Wanda waved as they walked away.

Lizzy wiggled her fingers in acknowledgment but didn’t look back. “I bet his mother rented that villa and I bet she’s soliciting churches for sponsorship for his mission work. And I bet dollars to cow patties that he will live like a king.”

“Jealous?”

“No, I am not. I’ve got my store and the sexiest cowboy in the whole area for a boyfriend tonight.” She smiled.