He paced the floor, went to the kitchen, and opened the refrigerator. Nothing looked good. He took a cookie from the jar but it didn’t have any taste and he gave the last half to Shooter. He went to the window and pulled up the ratty blinds. The moon hung out there with a whole sky full of stars around it. They looked cold up there in the sky, as if they were aware that in a few days they’d be blotted out from sight.
What in the hell was wrong with him? He had called many women with less reason than to ask about her grandmother. Had this place robbed him of all his wild ways? No, sir! Nothing could tame a wild Dawson cowboy! And if Allie didn’t want to talk, he could call Sharlene or Mary Jo.
He poked in the numbers again without pausing.
“Hi, Blake. Please don’t tell me Granny is back over there,” Allie answered.
He paced the floor again as he talked, moving from living room to the kitchen, around the table and back to the living room. “No, I wanted to be sure you got her home all right, though.”
“She’s fine,” Allie said.
“You got time to talk?”
“About what?”
He hesitated, looking for something, anything, to keep her on the phone other than the job. “Did you figure out who Walter is or was?”
“Mama says he moved in over there more than thirty years ago.”
“I wonder what it is that she remembers in bits and pieces.” He could listen to her read the dictionary with that soft southern twang in her voice.
“Mama said it was the year she was planning her wedding and she got married when she was eighteen. I think Granny had her when she was about nineteen because Mama is fifty-one.”
Shooter looked up from the end of the sofa and Blake stopped to scratch his ears. “And you are how old?”
“Twenty-nine in the spring, and you do know it’s not polite to ask a woman how old she is or how much she weighs?” Allie said.
“One hundred twenty-five pounds but that’s with your boots on.” Did that slight lilt in her voice mean that she was enjoying talking to him?
A long pause made him check the phone to see if she was still there. Then Shooter went to the door and looked up at the doorknob.
“Just a minute, old boy,” he whispered. The dog could cross his legs for a few minutes. Blake was just starting to get Allie to open up and he wasn’t about to lose the opportunity to talk to her some more.
“What did you call me? Did you really say old boy to me? And I’m going to shoot Deke for telling you my weight,” Allie said.
“Deke didn’t tell me. I caught you when you fell and I’m a pretty good judge of how much dead weight I can hold.” Blake started for the door to let Shooter out, but the dog changed his mind and returned to his rug by the fire.
“So how old are you?” she asked.
“Twenty-nine last November and I weigh two hundred pounds without my boots.” He searched his mind for something else to talk about so she wouldn’t make an excuse to end the call. Church! He planned to go on Sunday to get to know more people in the area. That was a safe topic. “Do you go to that church down the road from the feed store?”
“It’s the only church left in Dry Creek, so yes, that’s where my family goes on Sunday.”
She surely must not be nervous because she wasn’t talking too fast or spitting out too many details like Deke said. Was she only being nice to him because for the next few days he was her employer?
Shooter went back to the door and he headed in that direction. “Do they make newcomers walk through hot coals?”
“Not last time a stranger attended. We tend to welcome them, not punish them. But we might kill a chicken and use the blood for war paint on your cheeks.” She giggled.
He shivered at the visual that reply produced. “Is that initiation, or do you get your cheeks painted, too, since you invited me?”
“I didn’t invite you. I just said that we have church and we welcome newcomers,” she argued.
He opened the door but Shooter barely stuck his nose out. “So if I showed up in my best jeans and polished boots, they might not tar and feather me?”
“No, but they might make you eat the raw chicken, feathers and all, to prove you are tough enough to live in our part of Texas.” She laughed.
Her laughter was like tinkling bells on a belly dancer’s costume. Matter of fact, the only time he saw a real belly dancer she had dark brown hair and brown eyes. Could Allie have secrets hiding somewhere in the pockets of those cargo pants?
“Sounds like I’d better sneak in late and sit on the back pew so I can make an escape if I hear clucking.”
“You might as well sit on the front pew. Where’s the fun in not taking risks?” she answered.
She was warming up. He could hear it in her voice. He closed his eyes and imagined her doing a seductive dance for him in a flowing costume with little bells sewn into the fabric around the hips. His breath caught in his chest and he gasped.
“So you don’t take risks?” she asked.
“Shooter can’t make up his mind whether to go out or stay in. Cold wind about took my breath away. And, honey, I do take risks. I bought the Lucky Penny, remember?” He closed the door but Shooter didn’t go back to the rug.
“Point taken,” she said. “Don’t bother polishing your boots or they might take you for a city boy. We’re pretty casual here in Dry Creek.”
“Do you polish your boots?” he asked.