The Cowboy (11 page)

But she’d been a nervous wreck ever since she’d agreed to go with him, trying to figure out a way to absent herself from Three Oaks overnight without raising eyebrows or provoking questions from her family that she didn’t want to answer.

“There’s an auction in Houston I think I should attend,” she announced at the supper table on Wednesday.

She was expecting an argument, but her father merely said, “Sounds like a good idea.”

Her mother asked, “Where will you stay?”

“Someplace cheap,” she replied.

“Can I come along?” Luke asked.

“I need you here,” her father said.

As simply as that, her escape had been arranged.

Of course, she was going to have to attend the auction,
but she didn’t think that would be a problem. The sale was being held on Saturday afternoon. The event at the museum wasn’t until later that evening. But she’d have to leave for Houston earlier than the time she’d agreed to meet Trace in town.

Callie debated the best way of contacting Trace to let him know they’d be traveling separately to Houston and to set the ground rules for their “date.” Finally, she decided to ask Lou Ann Simpson for help. They’d been friends all through high school, but Lou Ann had gotten married instead of going to college. Callie had never confided to her friend about her relationship with Trace, because Lou Ann would have given her too hard a time about “sleeping with the enemy.”

Callie had never told her best friend the truth about Eli, so Lou Ann had no reason to suspect the relationship that had existed between Callie and Trace in the past. At the same time, Lou Ann already knew Trace was interested in Callie, because she’d heard him ask Callie to dance.

Wednesday night she called Lou Ann and said, “Can you do me a favor?”

“What do you need?” Lou Ann asked.

“Invite Trace Blackthorne over for supper on Friday night.”

“No problem. I owe him a dinner anyway. What’s the special occasion?”

“I need a chance to talk with him before Saturday.”

“What’s happening Saturday?”

“Trace asked me out on a date. In Houston.”

Lou Ann whistled. “I could see the sparks flying between the two of you on the dance floor, but my dear girl, I had no idea things had gone so far. Trace Blackthorne
and Callie Creed. I would never have figured the two of you together.”

“It’s Callie Monroe,” Callie reminded her. “And I only agreed to be his date for some charity event at the Museum of Fine Arts. Will you do it?”

“Sure. Just call me Cupid.”

“That isn’t funny,” Callie said.

Lou Ann laughed. “See you on Friday at seven.”

It was easy to get away from the house on Friday. Callie simply told the truth. “Lou Ann invited me over for supper. I won’t be late.”

Of course that meant no dressing up. No wearing makeup. Not that she needed—or wanted—to dress up for Trace. There was no need to impress him. They weren’t an item, even if Lou Ann planned to play Cupid. Callie put her hair into a French braid, slipped on a clean pair of jeans and a plaid Western shirt, and gave her boots a quick buffing.

It was too late to change when she noticed the worn-through elbow on her shirt. She told herself she wouldn’t have changed shirts anyway. Not everyone was as rich as the Blackthornes. Most people had to get the fullest use out of the material things they owned before they could discard them. She wasn’t about to let Trace make her feel uncomfortable about a frayed shirt.

Trace was sitting in a wicker chair next to Dusty on the back porch of the Rafter S ranch house, drinking a Lone Star, when Callie arrived.

“Don’t get up,” she said to both men as she stepped down from her pickup.

Trace was clearly surprised to see her. She’d assumed
Lou Ann would have told him she was coming, since her friend was notoriously bad at keeping secrets.

Had he always been so handsome? Callie wondered. His black hair was wet, as though he’d just come from the shower, and he’d shaved, since his cheeks and chin were smooth. She thought of the time he’d left whisker burn on her cheeks when they’d spent an evening necking, and how ever after he’d insisted on shaving before he came to her. She’d missed the rough, prickly feel of his beard against her skin.

Suddenly, she realized he was eating her with his eyes as voraciously as she’d been consuming him. She brushed absently at a strand of hair that blew across her cheek as her body responded to the gleam of fascination in Trace’s eyes—oh, yes, she could remember how delicious it felt!—as he gazed back at her.

“Lou Ann’s in the kitchen,” Dusty said. “She’ll be out in a minute. Make yourself comfortable.” He gestured toward the hanging porch swing that he knew was Callie’s favorite place to sit.

Callie would have been more comfortable in the kitchen with Lou Ann, but she settled herself in the wooden swing as Trace handed her an opened longneck from the bucket of iced beer sitting on the porch between the two men. She managed to take the Lone Star from Trace without touching his hand and took a greedy gulp. The ice-cold beer tasted wonderful going down, and the bottle gave Callie something to do with her nervous hands.

“I didn’t expect to see you before tomorrow,” Trace said.

“That’s why I came,” she said. “We have to talk.”

“Uh-oh.”

“I’m still going to Houston,” she hurried to say. “But there are complications we need to discuss.”

“There you are, right on time,” Lou Ann said as she used her hip to shove open the screen door. An immense stack of picnic items was balanced precariously in her hands and tucked up under her chin.

“Let me help you with some of that,” Callie offered, leaping to her feet and grabbing for the bottle of catsup, the mustard, and a jar of pickles. She followed Lou Ann to the picnic table just beyond the porch, where Lou Ann let everything tumble out of her hands onto a checked tablecloth. Silverware placed strategically at the four corners kept the wind from sending the cloth flying.

“I decided on a cook-out, because the day turned out so nice,” Lou Ann said. Giant hamburgers sizzled as Lou Ann dropped them one at a time onto the hot grill.

“Where are the girls?” Callie asked as she helped Lou Ann arrange plates and condiments on the picnic table.

“Sallie and Frannie are on a Girl Scout camp-out this weekend. Leaving me and Dusty all alone,” she said, her eyebrows wagging up and down suggestively.

Dusty blushed. “Aw, hell, Lou Ann. Not in front of the neighbors.”

“Trace and Callie know we sleep together, darling,” Lou Ann said, as she crossed and sat down on Dusty’s lap. She wrapped her arms around his neck and said, “For once, I’m not giving away any secrets.”

Dusty’s blush deepened.

Trace’s laugh was cut off when Lou Ann turned to him and said, “What I want to know is where you two are planning to sleep this weekend.”

Callie choked on a swallow of beer. She avoided looking at Trace as she replied, “In different hotels.”

Lou Ann laughed. “If you say so.”

“I thought you were planning to stay in your parents’ penthouse on Woodway,” Dusty said to Trace.

“Callie and I are going to take a walk,” Trace said, rising from his chair. He snagged her hand, set both their beers on the picnic table, then headed toward the shade of some cottonwoods along Bitter Creek.

“Don’t hurry back,” Dusty said, as his arms encircled his wife.

“Don’t forget about the hamburgers,” Callie called over her shoulder.

“Hamburgers?” Lou Ann replied with a dazed look in her eyes, as Dusty nuzzled her neck.

“Come on,” Trace said, tugging on Callie’s hand. “The sooner we finish our business, the less charred my hamburger’s going to be.”

Trace held on to her hand until they reached the creek. He released it to bend down and pick up a stone, then skipped it across the creek. It quickly plopped in.

“I used to be better at this,” he said, bending down for another stone.

Callie leaned back against a cottonwood, to avoid joining him. She didn’t want to be friends. She just wanted things settled between them, so that Trace could go back to wherever he’d come from and leave her alone.

“What complications need to be resolved?” Trace asked, when the second stone performed no better than the first.

“I have to leave early in the morning, in order to attend an auction in the afternoon in Houston.”

“No sweat. I’ll fly you over in the morning. Next problem.”

Callie was stunned. “There really isn’t any other problem. But I can’t—”

“Don’t tell me you wouldn’t rather fly than face that drive on Route 59,” Trace said. “What time do you need to be in Houston?”

“The two-year-olds go on sale at one o’clock.”

“We’ll leave at eight. That’ll give us time to shop at Neiman’s for a dress, then freshen up at the penthouse before you—”

“I’m not staying with you, Trace.”

“Why not? It’ll save you the cost of a room.”

“I won’t sleep with you,” she corrected.

He skipped a stone halfway across the creek. “You can have your own bedroom.”

She thought of the kind of motel room she could afford, then imagined the luxury of the Blackthornes’ penthouse apartment in Houston. She was tempted to agree to his offer. But she knew better. There were dangerous pitfalls lying in wait, if she spent the night under the same roof as Trace.

“Nothing is going to happen that you don’t want to happen, Callie.”

She looked at Trace, startled at the way he’d read her mind. The problem was, she wasn’t sure what she wanted. She felt entirely too vulnerable. She hadn’t been held in a man’s arms for a very long time. And Trace was not just any man. They had once been lovers. They had once been in love.

In the end, her practicality won out. It was foolish to spend the money for a room when she had the offer of a
place to stay for free. “All right,” she said. “I’ll stay at your parents’ penthouse. But only because it’ll be more convenient for both of us. And I’ll take that separate bedroom.”

“Fine. Now that we’ve worked everything out—”

“One more thing.”

“What?”

“I don’t want you buying any clothes for me.”

“No dress?” Trace said with a boyish grin.

“No dress.”

He crossed to her and slid an arm around her shoulders in the way he often had when they were in college, as though they were just good pals. “We’d better get back to the house,” he said. “I can smell our hamburgers burning.”

I
t wasn’t until they were in the air headed toward Houston that Callie realized she was a captive, with nowhere to go if Trace started asking questions she didn’t want to answer. She decided the safe move was to direct the conversation herself and keep it aimed at neutral topics.

“Nice airplane,” she said. “I was expecting a twin-engine Cessna, not a corporate jet.”

“Actually, we don’t own this yet. I’m trying to talk Dad into buying it.”

“It’s beautiful, sleek, and fast. Why wouldn’t he want to buy it?” Callie asked, smoothing her hand across the leather seat.

“Because I suggested it.”

“Oh.”

“Let’s change the subject,” Trace said. “What are you going to do with the rest of your life?”

Callie’s jaw dropped. Then she laughed. “How am I supposed to answer a question like that?”

“Honestly.”

She shrugged. “Live it, I guess.”

He shook his head. “That’s no answer. Do you plan to keep on working for your father?”

“Why wouldn’t I? It’s work I love. And I’m good at it.”

“Fair enough,” Trace said. “What if someone offered you more money to do the same work somewhere else?”

“My family needs me.”

The words were out before Callie could stop them. She watched Trace’s mouth thin and harden. She waited for him to chide her for putting her family first, but he changed the subject entirely.

“What are you wearing tonight?”

“A dress.”

“I figured that,” he said, his lips curving wryly. “What color?”

“Why does it matter?” she asked.

“I thought I might get you a corsage.”

“I love gardenias,” Callie said wistfully.

“I know. Fortunately, they go with anything. All right, gardenias it is.”

Callie laughed. “You don’t have to buy me flowers, Trace. This isn’t the prom.”

“I never got to take you to the prom. You went with Henry Featherstone. And you wore a peach-colored dress.”

“How could you possibly know that?” Callie asked.

“Because I saw you walk in with him.”

“You didn’t know I was alive in high school,” Callie scoffed.

“You had algebra first period, across the hall from my trig class. You ate a sack lunch with the same three girls every day, Lou Ann, Becky, and Robbie Sue. You spent your free period in the library reading Hemingway and Steinbeck. And you went straight home after school without doing any extracurricular activities, except on Thursdays. For some reason, on Thursdays you showed up at football practice. Why was that, Callie?”

Callie was confused. How could Trace possibly know so much about her activities in high school? They hadn’t even met until she showed up at the University of Texas campus. “I don’t understand,” she said.

“You haven’t answered my question. Why did you come to football practice on Thursdays?”

“Because that was the day I did the grocery shopping, and I didn’t have to be home until later.”

“Why were you there, Callie?”

Callie stared into his eyes, afraid to admit the truth. But what difference could it possibly make now? She swallowed hard and said, “I was there to see you.”

He gave a sigh of satisfaction. “I hoped that was it. But I never knew for sure.”

Callie’s brow furrowed. “You wanted me to notice you?”

“I noticed you. Couldn’t you feel my eyes on you? Didn’t you ever sense the force of my boyish lust? I had it bad for you my senior year. I couldn’t walk past you in the hall without needing to hold my books in my lap when I sat down in the next class.”

“You’re kidding, right?”

Trace chuckled. “I wish I were.”

“Then it wasn’t an accident, our meeting like that at UT?”

“That’s the miracle of it,” Trace said. “It was entirely by accident. Fate. Kismet. Karma. Whatever you want to call it. I would never have sought you out, Callie.”