One Lucky Cowboy (2 page)

   "What you so mad about? Never seen you act like this," Vince Johnson asked. His father was the foreman of the Double L Ranch and the tall, gangly young man had worked for Slade in the summers since he was barely big enough to sit a horse.

   "Granny drove to town, backed into a car, drug home a stray woman, and is acting like nothing happened," Slade said.

   "It's the woman that's making you the maddest. Granny has driven to town before. She's had accidents before and you've never gotten in a snit like this."

   Slade turned his horse to gather in another bull without answering. Damn kids these days. What made them so wise, anyway? He didn't remember being that smart when he was sixteen. So what if it was the woman that brought on the fury? Granny had no right to hire live-in help without consulting him. They had always talked things over, hashing through the pros and cons until an agreement was reached.

   He pulled a bottle of water from his saddle bag and drank long and deep, frowning at the house the whole time. He'd never liked being reminded of his vulner ability where his mother was concerned and he'd hated the idea of being blindsided. Not that Jane Doe or Day or whatever fictitious name she pulled out of her ass was anything like his mother, who was a tall, gorgeous blonde and could put Marilyn Monroe to shame. Pretty enough to be a model. Trashy enough to entice men. Smart enough to know the difference between rich and poor men. These days she had her nails and hair done in Los Angeles and the line of ex-husbands was longer than his arm.

   Jane Day was pretty in an impish sort of way. She had dirty-blonde hair cut in layers from her chin to her shoulders, big brown eyes with perfectly arched brows, and a wide full mouth that would appeal to some men but reminded Slade too much of the pouting Marilyn look. It was that mouth that reminded him of his mother and brought on the memories.

   The resemblance ended there, though. He would give credit where it was due and admit she had some redeemable qualities in that short little body with a waist so small he could span it with his big hands. After all he wasn't blind. Nor was he dumb. The woman was after something, and she wasn't finding it on his ranch.

Jane found Nellie in the kitchen. A large pot of beans simmered on the back burner of the stove. Cornbread was in the cast-iron skillet ready to pop into the oven.

   "You know anything about cooking for a dozen hungry men?" Nellie asked.

   "Little bit. What can I do?"

   "Got any skill at a Mexican casserole to go with those beans and cornbread?"

   "I could do that," Jane nodded.

   "Hamburger meat is in the fridge."

   "Chips?"

   "In the pantry right over there. You'll find every thing else you need in there or in the fridge. Better make two pans full or they'll be whining about still being hungry."

"Dessert?"

   "Get some frozen peaches out of the freezer. I didn't have time to make anything sweet this morning," Nellie said.

   "How about some warm brownies to go with the peaches?"

   Nellie's smile erased a few of the wrinkles around her mouth and deepened those around her blue eyes. "I knew I'd hired the right person."

   Evidently that's who Slade had inherited his piercing blue eyes from—only Nellie's had softened with age. Jane couldn't imagine her shooting daggers like her grandson. When he was as old as Nellie, his eyes still wouldn't be soft. He'd be able to pierce steel instead of heal broken hearts and melt butter.

   "Slade came to live with me when he was eight years old. That was twenty-two years ago, six months after my son, Thomas, died in a car wreck. Thomas was so smart it was just plumb scary. Finished high school over in Nocona when he was sixteen and had his first college degree before he could even buy a beer. Wound up with a doctorate in engineering and worked down in Dallas. He wasn't just smart. He was downright pretty. Looked a lot like Slade, only Slade has that tough angular look to his face that his Daddy didn't have. Yes, ma'am, Thomas was intelligent in everything but women," Nellie talked as she worked.

   Jane listened.

   "If I'd been picking a wife for him the one he got wouldn't have even been on the far bottom of the list. But he was damned and determined that he loved her. I called it the Knight-in-Shining-Armor syndrome. He thought he could ride in on his intelligence and save her. She was dirt poor, pretty, and didn't have two good brain cells in her head. They made it ten years before he died. Six months later she called me from a pay phone on the way here. Said she was bringing Slade to me to raise. She couldn't look at him without thinking of Thomas and besides she was getting married again."

   "Oh, my," Jane mumbled. She didn't give a royal rat's ass that Slade Luckadeau hadn't had a perfect little life. She was the hired help, not his future psychiatrist.

   "Hey, you're pretty good at stirring up those brownies. You got the recipe in your head or something?"

   "Yes, ma'am. My momma taught me to cook. She said I needed to learn everything from the kitchen to the barn from the ground up," Jane said.

   "I sure enough did the right thing when I hired you. God really did give me a lucky break when you got off that bus this morning."

   Jane slid the brownies into the preheated oven and went to work on the casseroles. They'd follow the brownies into the oven in thirty minutes and be steaming hot when the crew came in from the hayfields for lunch. Cooking was her hobby and she was good at it. After all, she'd had the best teacher in the world for sixteen years.

   "You want me to set the table while they're cooking?" she asked Nellie.

   Nellie shook her head. "They'll eat out on the deck. Come on and I'll show you how to set things up for them."

   "Why don't they eat at the table?" Jane asked.

   "It'd take a week to fumigate the house with that much man-sweat coming inside. Winter time we only have a skeleton crew. They eat in the house. Rest of the time they eat on the deck. Besides, they like it that way. If they was to come inside and get all cool, it would give them a heart attack to go back out in the afternoon heat."

   She led the way through sliding glass doors in the kitchen nook out onto an enormous deck. The deck covered the entire space between the two wings that made the U-shaped, one-story ranch house. Yellow and orange marigolds, purple, pink, and white petunias, multicolored lantana, violet vinca, and red impatients splashed color around the deck. Two ancient pecan trees and a hackberry provided shade for the yard and the deck.

   Nellie opened two doors to a closet on the north side of the deck. Disposable plates, cheap cutlery, jelly glasses, and rolls of paper towels were all neatly arranged. "This is kind of like the tail end of a chuck wagon. Designed it myself years ago when I got tired of hauling everything in and out every day. We use paper plates but I've never learned to like plastic forks, so I bought some cheap stainless at the dollar store."

   She handed a stack of divided Styrofoam plates to Jane and motioned toward an eight-foot table covered with a vinyl cloth. "We set it up buffet style on this table. They help themselves. We'll need bowls today for the beans and peaches; better open two packages. There's a blue plastic caddy I put the silverware in. Glasses go on the table with ice already in them. Four pitchers of tea, two of lemonade and two of water go down the middle of the table along with jars of picante sauce and salt and pepper shakers. It's a constant job keeping the liquid in the pitchers. They come in here with a big thirst after working all morning. Most of them carry a half-gallon jug of some kind that they'll refill before they head out again, so we'll make lots of tea and lemonade."

   "How many glasses?"

   "Twenty-four."

   Jane whistled under her breath.

   "Shame, ain't it? Used to take fifty men to do the work in the summer but with all this new-fangled equip ment and those big, round hay bales, we get by with less than half that. Don't know if we're saving money or not. Equipment requires more upkeep than men."

   "But it sweats less," Jane said.

   "Smart as well as handy in the kitchen. I think I might be goin' to like you, Jane Day," Nellie said.

Slade heard the dinner bell sounding across the fields and rode his horse to the edge of the yard, where he tethered it to the fence. He pulled off his leather gloves and headed for the pump to wash his hands and face. The cold well water felt good but did nothing to appease the turmoil still rolling about in his heart and soul. Besides being upset with his grandmother, now he'd have to listen to Kristy whine and bitch about another woman in the house. While he dried off on a long length of paper towels, he sighed. Kristy had been looking for a job ever since she got laid off over at the leather factory in Nocona. She was going to pitch a real hissy fit when she found out Granny had hired someone right off the street and not her.

   "You sick?" Vince asked.

   "Might as well be," Slade answered.

   "Can I have your share of the brownies?"

"Granny made brownies?"

   "No, she said that new girl—the one she hired over in Wichita Falls this morning—made them. If you're too sick to eat, I'm layin' claim to your share."

   "I'm not sick to my stomach but I'm going to be sick of listening to Kristy," Slade answered honestly.

   "Well, shoot. They're fresh out of the oven and smell like heaven," Vince said.

   Jane watched two dozen men wash up, dispose of their paper towels in a big trash can beside the pump, and load their plates and bowls to the brim with lunch. They sat at three eight-foot tables covered in the same red-and-white checked vinyl as the buffet table and talked about the work they'd gotten done as well as what they planned to do until dark.

   "Slade, you need anything from the feed store or anywhere else in Nocona? I'm having Jane drive me over for groceries this afternoon," Nellie asked above the drone of the men's voices.

   Slade shot Jane another mean look and nodded. "Sure, I'll make a list for the feed store, and would you go by the flower shop and send Kristy half a dozen roses? Sign the card,
Just thinking of you, Slade
."

   Jane stiffened to keep from shuddering. How many times had John sent her roses with a similar note? In the six weeks they'd dated before he proposed she'd had fresh roses all the time. One vase-full scarcely had time to wilt before another arrived at her desk. In her mind roses meant a first-rate con job, not love.

   Slade held up a tea pitcher. "This needs a refill."

   Jane reached to take it from his hand. He held on tightly and whispered, "Pack your bags when you get back from the grocery store. I'm taking you to Wichita Falls as soon as supper is over."

   "In your dreams, cowboy. You didn't hire me and you can't fire me."

   "I can make you miserable."

   Everyone stopped talking and silence filled the yard. Even the birds stopped their singing and the crickets were quiet.

   "I've been made miserable before and by full fledged professionals. I reckon compared to them you're just an amateur."

   Vince chuckled. "I think you met your match, Slade."

   Heat that had nothing to do with the thermometer crept up Slade's neck. "Why would you stay somewhere that you're not wanted?"

   "Just call it determination. Nellie hired me. When she's dissatisfied with my performance she'll fire me and I'll leave. What you think or don't think of me doesn't matter a damn bit to me."

   "Whew, she's spunky. You make these brownies?" A short Mexican man piped up right next to Slade.

   Her eyes and face softened when she looked away from Slade. "Yes, sir, I did and the casseroles. Tomorrow we're having turkey and dressing with pumpkin pie for dessert."

   "By the way, I'm the foreman of the Double L. Name is Marty. And if he fires you, honey, you come talk to me. I'll hire you right back."

   Slade snorted. "Looks like I'm outvoted by a whole passel of fools."

   "Enough bickering," Nellie said. "Jane is here to stay as long as she wants. If she proves out to be as good as I think she is, I'm thinkin' of going to Ellen's out in Amarillo for a week. So put that in your pipe and smoke it, Slade."

   He rolled his eyes. Kristy would really go up in flames at that idea. Him alone in the house with another woman—that should throw ice on their budding relationship. They'd been dating for six months and he'd been entertaining notions of taking it to the next level. Granny wasn't real happy with that idea, but he was thirty years old and he wanted a family. Kristy came with two little girls. He'd have a jump start with those benefits.

   He threw up his hands in defeat. "Have it your way but you're going to find I'm right when it's all said and done."

   The men finished eating, threw their dirty plates and bowls in a trash can at the end of the buffet table, put the cutlery in a plastic dish pan, and lined the glasses up beside it. They claimed chairs, a spot of shade under the hackberry and pecan trees, or chaise lounges and shut their eyes—all but Slade, who toted the dishpan into the house.

   Jane and Nellie each carried half a dozen glasses, waitress style, and followed him. The wind shifted and Jane got a solid whiff of Slade in all his musky, sweaty glory. She understood fully why Nellie wouldn't want two dozen like that in her dining room. It would take months to clean out that much testosterone. She wasn't sure there was that much air freshener on the market.

   Nellie set the glasses down and headed back out to cart the bean pot inside.