“That’s because no sane woman could live with you. He’s so set in his ways that you’d think he was eighty-five rather than twenty-five.” Allie pushed back her chair and took her bowl to the cabinet for a refill. Lizzy could scream that she’d sold her soul but the chili was worth every bit of her sister’s bitching.
When she returned she reached for a piece of cornbread at the same time Blake did, and a shiver ran from her fingers to her gut. Dammit! She was not giving in to her hormones. She had to keep things in perspective.
“You look like you are getting in that mood again,” Deke said.
“She might be fighting with the voices in her head. My brother gets that look on his face when he is doing that,” Blake said. “Most of the time it involves which woman he’s taking home from a bar. You thinkin’ about a fellow, Allie?”
“Hell, no! That’s the last thing on my mind. Do you ever fight with yourself, Blake?” Allie asked.
One of Blake’s shoulders hitched up a few inches. “I do it all the time.”
Deke made circles with his forefinger up next to his ear. “I swear she’ll be loony by the time she’s thirty. Maybe I should leave the beer in the truck. She can’t hold her liquor worth a damn.”
“What are you talkin’ about? Just because you are big and mean and tough don’t mean I can’t drink you under the table,” she protested.
Deke held up a finger and swallowed. “They say that liquor kills brain cells and you’ve been talking to the voices in your head. I rest my case.”
Allie shook her fist at Deke. “Enough. Eat your dinner and stop being a clown. We’ve got to get at least half the shingles kicked off today and new felt put down if there’s not rotting boards.”
“Y’all get in a bind, holler at me. I can leave what I’m doing and help any way I can,” Blake said.
“We might do just that if it starts to get dark. Days don’t last nearly as long in January as they do in July.” Deke polished off the last of his chili. “Is it all right if I get the chocolate pie out and slice it up?”
Blake refilled his glass with sweet tea. “Help yourself to the pie. There’s a Mexican casserole in the refrigerator and lots of leftover chili. Y’all might as well join me at noon while you’re workin’ on the roof. I hate to see good food go to waste.”
Deke said. “Count me in. Is that Sharlene’s Mexican casserole?”
Blake nodded.
“Thanks for the offer, but you don’t have to feed us every day.” Allie met Blake’s steely gaze down the length of the table.
“It’s no problem. The food is already here. We just have to heat it up and I sure like to have someone other than Shooter to talk to while I eat.” He smiled and went back to eating.
Deke reached under the table and squeezed her knee. She jumped like she’d been hit with a stun gun and shifted her gaze to him. He was warning her that he could and would go home before the first shingle was removed if she didn’t agree to Blake’s offer.
“Okay, then,” Allie said. “Thank you. It’s very generous of you to invite us.”
An hour later, Deke had unloaded shingles from the trailer onto a couple of pallets, and had repositioned the trailer to catch the old shingles as they threw them off the roof. The sound of the dozer tearing trees up by the roots could be heard in the distance as Deke set up a boom box on the roof and put in a Conway Twitty CD.
“I’m a pretty damn good judge of bulls, broncs, and cowboys,” Deke said, climbing back down the ladder and then toting two shingle remover tools up to the roof.
“So?” Allie scrambled up the ladder right behind him.
“So Blake Dawson is a good man.”
“And?” Allie picked up one of the bright orange tools with a long handle and slid it under the shingles at the peak of the roof.
Deke started on the next row, sending shingles sliding down the roof to land on the trailer.
“He won’t be our neighbor long. And besides I did my homework on this one.”
Deke’s eyes widened. “You investigated him?”
“Gossip works more than one way. I can find out things pretty easy, especially if it happened only a little more than a hundred miles from here. There are four of the Dawson boys. The older two are married and settled, but the younger ones have quite a reputation,” she said.
“For ranchin’?” Deke asked. “Or with the ladies?”
She expertly popped off a shingle and moved down to the next one. “Both. Rumor has it that they’re both crackerjack ranchers and their cousin Jud, who’s buying the Lucky Penny with them, is not only good with ranching but he can smell an oil well. How are you going to feel if they strike oil on the Lucky Penny and we’ve got all those trucks running through Dry Creek night and day?”
“Hell, Allie! That might be the kick start that Dry Creek needs to grow and maybe some of us other ranchers can talk Jud into sniffin’ around our land. Now, tell me about the part about him being a wild cowboy.”
Shingles started sliding down the slope of the roof and landing on the empty trailer. “Why? You afraid of the competition?”
“Hell, no! I’m the most eligible bachelor in the whole county. I can share. Come on, Allie. Tell me.”