How to Marry a Cowboy (Cowboys & Brides) (13 page)

He sat down in front of her and gently laid his hands on her shoulders. “I would never hurt you, Annie Rose, or force you to do anything you didn’t want to do. I’m sorry.”

She raised her head. The total chilling fear was gone, but tears rolled down her cheeks, leaving irregular spots on the T-shirt she’d bought as a bathing suit cover. “I know that. It’s reflex. You are the first man who’s even touched me since then. And I mean even touched as in the very simple word, not as in sex. I thought I was past the fear, but it paralyzed me when you held me like that. It’s me that should be apologizing. I’ve flirted with you all day and now I revert back to this.”

He tipped her chin up and kissed each eyelid before he very softly touched his lips to hers. “It takes time to heal, and we’ve got time, Annie Rose.”

He could feel the tension leaving her body as she uncurled and leaned in to lay her head on his chest. “Thank you, Mason.”

A car door slammed and it sounded like a herd of full-grown elephants stomping across the front porch, screaming all the way. “Daddy. Mama-Nanny. Where are y’all?”

“Dammit! They’re going to know that we went to the river and whine all evening because we didn’t take them,” he said.

Like a flash, she was on her feet. “Follow me.”

“Where?”

“Just trust me.”

He followed her through his office and into the pool area. They could hear both girls running up the stairs and back down, searching in the kitchen and dining room as she pointed toward the pool.

“Jump,” she said.

When the girls found them, Mason had his elbows propped on the edge of the deep end of the pool. Annie Rose was on a float with an arm over her eyes.

“Hey, y’all are home early,” he hollered when the girls shot through the den door.

“Mama-Nanny got a bathing suit!” Lily stopped at the edge of the pool. “I like it.”

“Well, thank you. I thought if we were going to swim this week, I’d best have something proper.” Annie Rose wasn’t surprised that her voice sounded normal. She’d perfected that trick when she was with Nicky. If she cried, it made him furious. If her voice trembled after he’d been abusive, he would go into another raging fit.

Doc waved from the door. “Hey, we got a call that Kenna’s parents are on their way to pick her up. The last trip didn’t take as long as they thought, so I brought the twins home early. Y’all don’t get out. I can’t stay. I’ll let myself out. Looks like Kenna’s folks will be home for a month this time. Maybe next time she’s here the girls can get together again.”

“Were they good?” Annie Rose asked.

“Couldn’t have been better. Mason, you’d best be figuring out a way to keep this woman. She’s worth her weight in gold. Got to go now and, Annie Rose, if you get tired of living on a ranch, Kenna’s mama would hire you in a heartbeat,” Doc said.

Mason waved back. “Let us know when Kenna comes back, but you don’t want to try to steal Annie Rose. The girls will make your life miserable.”

“Yes, we will,” Lily said.

“Can we swim too?” Gabby asked.

“Sure. Go put on your suits and you can have an hour to play before showers and bedtime. Did your band practice go well?” Annie Rose asked.

“Yes, ma’am. Let’s go, Lily. I betcha I beat you back to the pool.”

“No, you won’t. I’m faster than you,” Lily squealed and looked like a streak of blond hair and long legs as she ran toward the open den door.

“That was some fast thinkin’,” Mason said.

“Woman’s got to do what a woman’s got to do. Figured it would cool both of us off. What’s this about Kenna’s parents being gone and then home for a month?”

“I didn’t want to get cooled off that way,” Mason said.

“Me, either, but evidently I haven’t let go of past issues enough to take this to that level yet.”

“Like I said, we’ve got time,” Mason said. “And about Kenna’s folks. They do missionary work in the summer, and sometimes if it’s safe, they take her along, but if it’s not, then Doc and his wife take care of her.”

Lily did a cannonball off the side of the pool and yelled at her sister, who was six feet behind her. “I beat you. I told you I was faster than you.”

***

Annie Rose paced from one end of the tiny sitting room to the other, did a snappy military turn, and repeated the motions. She’d been at it for fifteen minutes, solving nothing but wearing out the carpet under her feet, when someone knocked and startled her into fight or flight mode. Since she’d learned early on in that Nicky was bigger and meaner than she was and fighting back only made things worse, flight mode put her heart into double time, and her whole body went stiff.

“Annie Rose,” Mason whispered.

Her heartbeat eased back to normal. The adrenaline rush would take a few minutes to settle. She opened the door wide and said, “Tea?”

“No, but I’ll make a pot if you want some. I’d like to talk. May I come in?”

“Of course. Please sit down.” She left the door open and motioned toward the love seat.

He patted the place beside him. “Sit with me, Annie Rose.”

Leaving several inches between them, she sat down and drew her legs up under her. “Are the girls all right? Did something happen today that they didn’t tell us?”

“This is about us, about me maybe more than you,” he said.

“Okay,” she said slowly, letting the last syllable out in a long gush of air. “As a boss, friend, or what?”

“As a boss, there is only praise and no complaints or pink slips. This is about the what. I want to say that I would never, ever hurt you physically or mentally. I’m not that kind of man. There’s something like strings between our hearts that keeps tugging me back to you, even though your actions sometimes remind me of Holly. I think we can be good for each other, and I’m willing to take it slow.” He reached down to the side of the love seat and threw a lever, bringing the footrest up on his side.

“I didn’t know that it did that,” she said. A love seat recliner, how great was that?

“Lots of things you still got to learn about the ranch, I guess. Try it. You’ll like it.” He smiled at her as he stretched out.

She popped up the footrest on her side and unwound her body. “Thank you.”

“For letting you in on the love seat-turning-into-a-recliner secret?”

“For coming in here and talking to me. I’ve been pacing back and forth, trying to get up the nerve to knock on your door.” She reached over and slipped her hand inside his.

He brought it to his lips and kissed each knuckle then held her hand in the space between them. “I love floating in the river, but that hot sun and the water sure wears me out.”

She glanced over at him, but his eyes were shut. She looked down at their hands intertwined together. Her heart was thumping away at a normal, merry little pace. It felt right and she didn’t want it to end, but she didn’t know what to say to keep him there.

Then he crossed his legs at the ankle and snored ever so slightly. She got comfortable and thought about how lucky she’d been when she found a porch swing to sleep on a week before.

A thin orange streak on the far horizon brought form to the mesquite trees and the backyard fence, and sent enough light through the window to wake Annie Rose the next morning. Her hand was still in Mason’s and his big hand covered hers. He’d rolled to his side, facing her, and was staring at her with the softest expression in his green eyes.

“Good morning, beautiful,” he said.

“Good morning.”

“I slept like a baby. How’d you do?”

“No dreams. Just good sleep,” she answered.

“Comfortable love seat, ain’t it?” He smiled.

“That and good company. I reckon it’s time to start breakfast. We’ve got a couple of girls who’ll be hitting the floor soon.”

“That’s right, we do.”

His emphasis on the word,
we
, put a smile on her face.

“Thank you for the sleepover.” He let go of her hand, pushed the lever to put his side of the love seat recliner back to rights, and stretched once he was on his feet.

“Anytime,” she said.

He picked up her hand, opened it up, and kissed her palm. “Happy Monday, Annie Rose.”

And then he strolled out of her sitting room, leaving the warmth of his lips on her hand. She folded her fingers over her palm and held it tightly to her chest for a few minutes before she started the brand-new week.

Annie Rose pushed the big poly cart out of the pool area toward the gate and heard a commotion out near the goat pens. If those damn goats had found a way out of the pen again, she just might take them to the auction, or maybe she’d bypass that and cook them for dinner.

She opened the gate and peeked out around the corner. Lily and Gabby were both swearing as they held the goats down.

“What’s going on out here?” Mason said right behind her. “I forgot the keys to my truck.”

She turned quickly and his strong arms went around her. Her hands flattened out on his hard chest and their eyes locked. They stood for a few seconds then Annie Rose raised a finger to her lips and turned around in his embrace.

“Shhh, I’m not sure. Be quiet and let’s watch.”

“Looks like they’re trying to saddle break those goats. Let’s film it,” he said, his breath warm on that soft spot where her shoulder met her neck. Her pulse raced as he slipped back into the house for a video camera. He was back in a flash.

“I’ll enhance the audio so we’ll be able to hear what they are saying,” he whispered in a deep drawl. Much more of that, and he’d be filming her as she pushed him backwards into the box elder hedge and jumped on top of him.

The sound came through as well as the picture, and she focused on the pens to keep the blush from her wicked thoughts at bay.

“Shit! Gabby, this damn goat is strong as Superman,” Lily said.

“Well, you’re bigger than he is, so hold him down tighter. You said you was going to be a roper last week. Djali ain’t nearly as big as a calf, and you don’t even have to sling the lasso to bring him down. I done got him on the ground. All you got to do is hold him still,” Gabby said.

“Do you think Daddy kissed Mama-Nanny when they were in the swimming pool?” Lily grabbed Djali around the neck and held his forehead with her hand. He kicked and squirmed, but the rope around his legs kept him from doing too much damage.

“I hope he did. We did our best, leavin’ them alone for a whole afternoon. It ain’t fair that they got to float down the river and we had to listen to Kenna’s singin’. That girl sounds like O’Malley with his tail caught in the door.” Gabby picked up a bottle of rubbing alcohol, poured it on Djali’s ear, and quickly jabbed a big darning needle through the bottom.

“Smart little devils, even at nine years old.” Mason’s words were audible enough that there was no doubt the recorder picked them up. “We might want to edit this part out before we make discs to share with their grandparents.”

“Oh, my God! You wouldn’t share that with your folks, would you? They’ll think I’m a hussy and not fit to be a nanny,” she gasped.

“Yes, I will, but I’ll edit that part out,” he said.

“Yes, please, Mason. I’d be mortified,” Annie Rose whispered. “Omigod! They’re trying to pierce those goats’ ears.”

Lily’s voice rose above the din. “Would’ve been easier if we could have found the tag applicator in the barn, but Daddy must’ve hid it from us.”

“Yes, her Daddy did hide it,” Mason said. “That’s because he said they cannot have pierced ears until they were older and he is afraid they’ll use the tag applicator to pierce each other’s ears.”

Annie Rose looked over her shoulder to find him staring at her, the camera pointed at the ground. Several seconds passed before Gabby’s worried voice jerked their attention away from each other and back to the filming business.

“I was watching your expression instead of filming,” he said as he whipped the camera back up to catch Gabby’s words and actions.

“There was blood, Lily. Do you think he’ll be all right?”

“Don’t you get all crazy over a teaspoon of blood. We still got to do Jeb’s ear. He’d be jealous if Djali got a gold hoop and he didn’t get one,” Lily said sternly.

Gabby’s face skewed up in a frown. “What if he gets infected and dies?”

“Then we get another goat or else we don’t and we don’t have to feed them and train them to be good at the stock show next fall,” Lily said.

“I guess Gabby isn’t going to be a nurse,” Mason said.

Annie Rose glanced over her shoulder again, and the camera was still held at the right position to film the girls, but his eyes were on her. She could feel the kiss about to happen right there in the bushes and moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue. But suddenly his focus shifted and he was staring at the screen. She felt so cheated that she wanted to pitch a fit and cuss like Lily.

“Hey, there’s O’Malley, sittin’ on the fence post. You reckon he wants an earring too?” Lily’s voice came through loud and clear.

“Let’s get Jeb done and then we’ll see about the cat, but I do have a diamond if we can catch him,” Gabby told her.

Mason’s breath smelled like coffee and maple syrup from the morning pancakes when he looked at Annie Rose and breathed out, “Let’s see if they’re mean enough to pierce a tomcat’s ear.”

Lily sat down on the edge of the hay bale and started talking to the goat. “Jeb, darlin’, it’s like this. I’m putting a gold hoop in your ear, and you can like it or not. I don’t give a damn which one you choose.” She made a dive and grabbed him by the legs. “I got him, Gabby. Bring the rope and tie him up.”

Jeb fought them like a drunk on drugs, but when they untied him, he had a gold hoop in his ear. He joined Djali in the far corner of the pen, and the bawling duet they did was enough to break a grown man’s heart.

Annie Rose had an almost overwhelming urge right then to turn around and make Mason put the camera down and talk to her about this thing that was between them and decide what they were going to do about it before her thumping heart jumped right out of her chest. It’s a wonder the noise of it didn’t come through the audio on the film.

Gabby grabbed the tomcat off the fence post and said, “Okay, O’Malley. It’s your turn.” She reached into the pocket of her cutoff jean shorts and brought out a sparkling diamond stud.

Lily grinned. “O’Malley will be the biggest, meanest-assed tomcat in the whole state of Texas with a diamond in his ear. You think we ought to put it in the top or the bottom of his ear?”

“In the bottom. If we put it in the top, it’ll make his ear sag, and he’ll look like a sissy. If we put it in the bottom, he’ll be real cool, like them guys on television,” Gabby said.

The camera wiggled again and Mason laughed out loud. “This is fun, but I wish I had two cameras. I can hardly keep this one trained on them because I keep wanting to watch you, Annie Rose. Your expressions are priceless.”

“Well, you’re getting a big kick out of it too,” she said, glad that a camera couldn’t record thoughts and visions or she’d be in big trouble.

“You bet I am. Here we go again. Now it’s time for the tomcat.” He whipped the camera back around to the girls.

O’Malley came alive when he smelled alcohol, but Gabby held him tightly even when he tried to climb over Lily’s frame. Then quick as a wink, the tomcat had a diamond flashing in the morning sun as he tore out in a streak toward the barn.

“Shit! Shit! Shit!” Gabby yelled.

“What?” Lily held on tighter.

“That sorry little shit done scratched me.”

“And that, folks, including you, Damian, is the reason you do not try to win a fight with my girls,” Mason said. “Any kid who can pierce a tomcat’s ear is not someone you want to cross. Way to go, Lily Harper.”

Anyone
crazy
enough
to
have
visions
of
sleeping
with
a
cowboy
they’ve only known a short while has less sense than those silly little girls,
that niggling voice said inside Annie Rose’s head.

“Oh, hush,” she whispered.

“What did you say?” Mason asked.

“I was arguing with myself, not you,” she answered honestly.

“There you have it, folks, another day in the lives of Gabby and Lily Harper, with short clips of what Annie Rose now realizes she’s let herself in for. They have horns and little spiky tails, not halos and wings.” He laughed.

“They are coming this way, and I didn’t think they were angels, not for one minute,” Annie Rose whispered.

Mason turned off the recorder and they hurried back into his office, where Annie Rose pulled the drapes back and peeked out. The girls fell into two lounge chairs.

“I guess that was hard work,” she said.

Mason’s arms went around her waist and he buried his face in her hair. She turned slowly and wrapped her arms around his neck. “It was harder work for me, Annie Rose. I couldn’t keep my eyes off you.”

His fingertip traced her jawline and then her lips before his mouth covered hers in a solid, hard kiss that weakened her knees. That was followed by a quick, sweet kiss and then he said hoarsely, “I’ll see you at noon.”

She barely had enough sense to nod and then he was gone, leaving her hanging onto the drapes for support.

***

Mason pulled up a chair to the supper table and bowed his head. “Gabby, will you say grace tonight?”

“I will, Daddy. Gabby got to say it last time, and it’s my turn,” Lily said.

Lily quickly bowed her head and said in a loud voice. “Dear God, we are glad for this day and we’re glad that Mama-Nanny is here to cook our food and be our mama. And if Daddy kissed Mama-Nanny yesterday, then we ask your blessin’ on that too.”

Mason’s eyes popped open so fast that it took a minute for the spinning room to right itself.

“Fried chicken?” Annie Rose handed him the platter filled with crisp home-fried chicken.

Gabby snagged a biscuit from a bowl and passed them to her sister. “We put earrings in our goats’ ears today and in O’Malley’s. It’s all right, Daddy. We used alcohol.”

“And we borrowed our real mama’s earrings from your room. We had some that we got for our birthday, but they are for our ears when we get them pierced. They aren’t for goats’ ears,” Lily said.

“Oh, my God!” Mason said through clenched teeth.

Annie Rose wished she had the camera when she saw the look on Mason’s face. She would never have believed he could go from suppressing laughter to curtailing pure rage in the blink of an eye.

“You took those earrings without even asking me?” Mason didn’t raise his voice, but the tone said that the whole goat episode wasn’t nearly as funny as it had been when he was filming. “I gave the hoops to your mother the last Christmas she was alive. And the diamond stud was one of a pair I gave her for our first anniversary. She lost the other one, and it upset her really badly.”

Gabby tucked her chin down to her chest. “We’re sorry, Daddy, but our real mama wouldn’t care. I just know she wouldn’t.”

Lily inhaled deeply. “We’ll ask next time. I promise. We didn’t know that the earrings would make you all mad.”

“Not mad,” Annie Rose said. “It makes him sad.”

“Then we’re real, real sorry, Daddy.” Gabby jumped up and hugged Mason.

“I’ve got a poker game tonight,” he blurted out. “We’ll talk about this later, but it will involve a punishment.”

“Don’t make me weed the flowerbed. I hate to pull weeds,” Lily groaned.

“Or straighten the tack room. Last time we did that, I saw a mouse and I hate mice,” Gabby said.

“I’ll think about it,” he said.

“Okay. Mama-Nanny, after we take a bath and you put more of that anti-whatever stuff on Gabby’s arm, can we please watch
The
Hunchback
of
Notre
Dame
in your room?” Lily asked without a worry on her face. “O’Malley didn’t take too kindly to us piercing his ears and we got scratched up pretty good.”

***

The little pewter jewelry box on his chest of drawers was open and empty. He’d bought it the day after they buried Holly and put the three earrings in there. Hardly a week went by that he didn’t look inside and remember her. Beside it was a picture of her on their wedding day, wearing her white dress and smiling into the camera.

He started to shut the jewelry box and accidentally knocked the picture to the floor. The frame hit the baseboard and broke into two pieces. The glass covering the picture shattered and the picture fell out on the carpet.

He opened his bottom dresser drawer and took out a Texas Longhorns T-shirt. At least those ornery girls hadn’t decided they needed his lucky poker shirt for the goats.

He was on his way down the stairs when O’Malley passed him. The diamond looked downright ridiculous in the big tomcat’s ear, and the girls would be pulling weeds and cleaning the tack room tomorrow for their stunt. And they couldn’t help each other, either. They’d spend the day apart, each one doing a chore she hated. They needed a real good lesson this time.