How to Marry a Cowboy (Cowboys & Brides) (14 page)

Piercing ears must have been some really hard work, because the girls were yawning by the end of the movie. Annie Rose expected their showers to energize them right back to full power, but for the first time since she’d been in the house, they didn’t even want to read. Their little eyes were shut before she closed their bedroom doors.

She sat down on the top step of the staircase and O’Malley rubbed against her hip and she instinctively scratched his head. “Holy shit! That thing has to be a full carat. There is no way you are losing something that valuable.” She kept petting the big old tomcat and eased the stud out of his ear. He shook his head as if he was glad to be rid of the weight and stretched out beside her. When she stopped stroking his fur, he opened his eyes, stood up, and ambled toward Mason’s bedroom.

Diamond in her hand, Annie Rose tiptoed inside the room right behind O’Malley. In one leap the big cat jumped up on the bed, smashed the pillow into the right amount of softness with his big paws, turned around a couple of times, and wound himself into a ball. She turned on the light, but it didn’t bother him at all.

Something glimmered in the moonlight on the floor, and she flipped the light switch. Glass cluttered the floor, and there was an empty pewter jewelry box on the chest of drawers. The satin lining inside showed where the edges of the diamond stud had rested, and two small circles gave testimony to having been home for a couple of hoops.

“I expect they were real gold,” she whispered. “I shudder to think what Nicky would have done to me for not stopping them. I’m not comparing two men. I’m just being thankful that all men aren’t evil.”

She carefully laid the diamond back in its place and pulled a small trash can over to the mess on the floor, fussing at Mason the whole time she cleaned it up. “I swear if you’d come home and stepped on a piece of this in your bare feet, your boots would have hurt your feet for weeks.”

That brought on a picture of him stretched out beside her on the love seat, his body so close that she could see every feature, softened by the light of the moon coming through the window. She was crazy as hell to let herself get caught up in the moment when his heart still belonged to his dead wife, and yet there she was, thinking about his hard body sleeping beside her, his hand covering hers, and his thick eyelashes resting on his cheeks.

She made sure every sliver of glass was in the trash before she picked up the picture and carried it down to the living room. A frame the same size as the broken one waited on the mantel to hold the girls’ birthday picture. She removed that glass and put it into the one in her hand, and held it up to get a better look at the luckiest woman on earth.

“You were beautiful,” she whispered as she ran a finger over Holly’s gorgeous red hair. “Your daughters have your smile and the same twinkle in their eyes as you do here. You would have thought today was funny too. I just know you would.”

When the picture was back on the chest of drawers beside the jewelry box, Annie Rose checked the girls one more time. They were sleeping soundly. Hopefully those pesky goats were doing the same.

The hot night breezes must have carried her scent to the goats, because they were backed up into the corner of the pen and eyeing her like she’d come to butcher them.

“You’d do well to hear me when I say this isn’t my first rodeo, boys. I’ve done some calf roping, and believe me, I did not come unprepared,” she told them in a soft tone. “You
will
be giving me those hoops, and you
will
be happy with the cheap ones I’m replacing them with. And you
will
be still while I make the change.”

Djali’s eyes rolled when she grabbed him around the neck. He screeched and carried on like a hoot owl when she wrapped the rope around his front legs and tied them to his hind ones. He thrashed his head and flopped his ears, but she was fast and determined. The earring was changed out in seconds and she turned him loose to hide behind the hay bale in the middle of the pen.

She and Jeb had a very different experience. The goat ran laps around the outer edge of the pen with her right behind him for three rounds. Then she abruptly turned and ran right at him. Poor old Jeb didn’t even know what hit him until he was on the ground, trussed up like a Thanksgiving turkey.

“There now. Be still and this will be over in a split second,” she said.

Jeb didn’t obey. He bit at her and tossed his head back.

“It can be easy or hard. Your choice,” she said as she wrapped her arms around his neck. She managed to get the earring out and safely into the pocket of her jeans, but then that damned goat hopped up on his four tied-together legs and tried to run. She grabbed him, but in the dark, she couldn’t find the hole that Gabby had put in his ear.

“Dammit!” She ran her fingers over his ear twice and couldn’t locate it before she realized she had the wrong ear. When she moved to the other side, Jeb took advantage of the situation and bit at her arm. His teeth grazed her skin, leaving a red streak but no blood.

“You remember that you asked for this.” She sat down and felt a soft squish under her butt as she grabbed his beard. “Now be still and let me get on with this. I’m only changing one earring for another. There’s no way in hell I’m letting you lose that much real gold.”

The smell of fresh manure wafted up to her nose, but she couldn’t rub it, not when she needed both hands to get the new hoop into Jeb’s ear. “I got to hand it to you. You’re the meaner goat and the most devious. I bet you even cuss in goat language like Lily does.”

She stood up and untied Jeb. He took off like a streak to butt Djali off the hay bale. They were still playing king of the mountain when she let herself out of the pen and headed back toward the house. Without thinking, she brushed her butt when she stepped up on the back porch, and brought back a hand smeared with fresh goat manure.

“Jeb, you win that round,” she said as she opened the door into the utility room with her other hand. She kicked off her boots and carefully removed her jeans, tossed them in the washer and washed her hand in the warm water as it ran into the machinery.

“Well, shit!” she yelped when she realized the good hoops were still in her pocket. “And I mean that in every sense of the word.”

The hoops weren’t even wet, but her hands were slippery, so she carefully carried them to the kitchen and laid them on the cabinet. When she’d washed up with soap and dried completely, she picked up the first earring and carefully cleaned it with a bit of alcohol on a paper towel.

That’s when she saw the inscription on the inside.

I
love
you
was engraved on one;
Forever
and
ever
on the other one.

Wearing only her underpants and a dirty shirt, she carried them up to Mason’s room and gently laid them back in their place.

***

Poker night usually involved five to eight guys, but that night only Colton, Lucas, Greg, and Mason were around the table in the kitchen at Greg’s house. Mason had a decent hand, but he couldn’t concentrate. He had had a moment of anger and he stood by his decision about the chores the girls had to do to atone. But the guilt about feeling something for another woman was gone. And he found himself on a guilt trip because he didn’t feel guilty. Add that to the picture of Annie Rose embedded in his mind, of that cute little rounded butt bending over to take something from the oven, her flashing blue eyes when she was happy, and even the way her hand fit so well in his… well, it damn sure made for a mixed-up set of complicated emotions.

Greg poked him on the arm. “You’re as nervous as a cat in heat. What’s going on?”

“Nothing. The girls pierced two goats’ and a tomcat’s ears today,” he said.

Lucas slapped his leg. “I’d let you win if I could see that.”

“I videoed the whole episode. I’ll bring it to the next poker game if you really want to see it,” Mason said. “And don’t laugh. You’ve got twin girls on the way and they’ll even have an older brother to help them get into mischief.”

Lucas’s expression changed instantly. “Damn. I hadn’t thought about having a set of twins like yours. I figured little girls would be all sugar and spice and hair bows and sweetness.”

“Think again,” Mason said.

“So is the new nanny still in good graces?” Colton asked.

“You didn’t tell us much at the picnic. Doc Emerson said she had a case of amnesia. Is she remembering anything?” Greg asked.

“Most everything. She was running from an abusive boyfriend. Nicky Trahan.”

Greg tossed in a few chips. “The one that got killed in that plane crash? The oil well Trahans that think they’re the Louisiana mob or something like that?”

“That’s the one. Anyway, it’s all over now and she’s safe.”

“And the girls haven’t run her off in what? Ten days?”

“Nine,” Mason said.

“That’s almost a record, isn’t it?” Greg asked.

“We went fourteen once when they were real little.” Mason grinned. “They think she’s their new mother and they mind her better than they did the other nannies. Besides, she’s damn good with them.”

“She looks like she could have birthed them,” Colton said.

“They are spittin’ images of my mother,” Mason said.

“So?” Lucas wiggled his eyebrows.

“What?” Mason raised one dark eyebrow.

Greg pushed back his chair and went to get four more beers from the refrigerator. “It’s way past time for you to move on, Mason. It’s been eight years. That’s long enough to mourn.”

“This is supposed to be a poker game, not a therapy session.” Mason chuckled.

“Then get your head in the game and stop giving us your money. We want to feel like we won something, not stole it from you,” Lucas said.

It was past eleven when he drove away from Greg’s place and headed back south to Bois D’Arc Bend. He crawled out of the truck and stumbled over a pair of rubber boots inside the door. O’Malley strutted down the steps and weaved around his legs as he set boots, sandals, and shoes against the far wall. When he reached down to rub the cat’s ears, he realized that the diamond earring was gone.

“Well, that didn’t last long. So now there is a high-dollar diamond out there in the hay barn or shining out in the pasture for a crow to eat?” Mason grumbled.

The cat ran into the den and Mason followed, figuring that he was on his way to the back door, but O’Malley jumped up on the back of the sofa and began to give his long, fluffy tail a good washing.

Mason started to pet him again, and there was Annie Rose asleep on the sofa. Blond hair fanned out on a throw pillow. Lashes resting on her delicate cheeks. Nightshirt with a faded Betty Boop on the front. She sighed and shifted positions, rolled over on her side, put a hand under the pillow, and drew her knees up. The nightshirt shifted, flashing bright red lacy underpants.

Annie Rose was surely a contradiction. Faded nightshirt and sexy panties. Just thinking about touching those full, ripe lips made his breath come in short gasps and put him into instant semiarousal. Common sense said that he should cover her with one of the throws from the rack over beside the fireplace and go directly to his bedroom. Desire said to wake her with a kiss. She looked uncomfortable in that position. If he didn’t move her to the bedroom, she’d have a sore neck the next morning. If he was gentle, she wouldn’t even wake up when he laid her on her bed and covered her with the edge of the bedspread.

She didn’t fight him or even stiffen up when he picked her up, but snuggled down into his chest and wrapped one arm around his neck. She mumbled something when he kicked the door open with his foot and O’Malley ran in ahead of him, hopped up on the rocking chair, and curled up in a ball.

“Damn cat!” she mumbled.

Her eyes were still shut.

“Damn goats!” she said clearly.

Her eyes moved rapidly behind her eyelids. She was dreaming about the tomcat and the goats. Mason tried to put her on the bed, but she held on tightly and said, “Don’t go.”

He checked and she was still sleeping. He stretched out beside her and she rolled toward him, throwing a leg over his body. He kissed her on the forehead and her eyes flew wide open.

“Mason?”

“Well, it ain’t Superman.” He chuckled.

Her arms went around his neck and she tangled her fingers into his dark hair, pulling his lips to hers. “I missed you sitting on the swing with me,” she whispered.

His hands slipped under her shirt and her skin was every bit as soft as he’d imagined. She groaned softly when he massaged the muscles between her shoulders and almost purred when he moved one hand around to cup a breast. It didn’t fill his big hand, but touching her hardened him until the pressure ached behind the zipper of his jeans.

She arched against him and that gesture assured him that she wanted him as badly as he did her. He slipped the nightshirt up over her head and she pressed her body against him as he strung kisses from forehead, down to her lips, where he followed one steamy kiss with another until they were both panting.

“Daddy, are you home?” Lily’s voice floated down the stairs.

“Shit!” he muttered.

Annie Rose pushed away from him and grabbed her nightshirt. “That squeaky step rattled. They’re coming downstairs. Go to the kitchen and I’ll meet you there.”

He rolled off the bed, and when the girls reached the kitchen, he had his head inside the refrigerator. That didn’t help a damn bit, but he had remembered to jerk his shirt out to cover the bulge in his jeans. “You should be asleep,” he said.

“Gabby woke up and she woke me up and we’re sorry about Mama’s earrings,” Lily said.

“You are still going to be punished because you took something without asking. Gabby is going to straighten the tack room and Lily is going to weed the flowerbeds. All of them, not just the ones in the front yard,” he said.

Annie Rose’s hair was all messy and her lips were bee-stung when she wandered into the kitchen. He couldn’t take his eyes off her legs or stop imagining them wrapped around his naked body.

“Mama-Nanny, did you hear what we have to do because we took things without asking?” Lily asked.