“I’m your best friend, so I have to act like a girl for you to listen to me. Just don’t ask me to wear pink taffeta and be your bridesmaid when you get married again. I draw the line at that,” he said.
“Darlin’, you don’t look good in pink taffeta. I was thinking purple silk, something with a big skirt and a sweetheart neckline,” she teased. “And FYI, I’m not getting married again and if I did it would involve a twenty-minute trip to the courthouse in Throckmorton, not a big wedding. Go eat your dinner and get back to work. With any luck I’ll be back on the job tomorrow morning.”
Deke lowered his voice to a whisper. “The hussy did not come back last night. And Bobby Ray spent the night at Riley’s place, but he and Nadine made up this morning.”
“Gossip travels fast,” she said.
“Nothing speedier in the whole world especially with the help of a cell phone and texting. Got to go.”
“Bye, Deke, and thanks for the call.”
“You betcha and Blake is yelling for me to tell you that he will call you back soon as we get done eating dinner.”
Allie’s coffee had gone lukewarm, but she sipped it anyway. The first tinkling, haunting sounds of the piano announced a song by Conway Twitty started on the radio. She tapped a finger on the counter to the beat in her head. He sang about standing on a bridge that just wouldn’t burn. Allie shut her eyes and pictured an old wooden bridge. Riley stood on the other end with his arms open wide, a smile on his face, beckoning to her to take the first step. In the vision, she took out an imaginary chuck of blazing firewood and set the damn thing on fire.
“Good-bye, past. Hello, future,” she mumbled.
Blake was in the dozer with Shooter right beside him when he called Allie. She was out of breath when she said, “Hello.”
“Busy at the feed store today?” he asked.
“Quiet except for a little drama this morning and then I had a run this afternoon for feed. I was in the back of the store making tickets for half a dozen ranchers who were loading their trucks when I heard the phone. I’d left it on the counter beside the cash register,” she explained.
“I can call back,” Blake said.
“It’s okay. I can talk,” she said. “Everything is taken care of right now. Granny is watching television and eating doughnuts in the office, while Mama has her usual school lunch rush. Hey, guess what? Nadine may open up a café here on Main Street.”
Blake put the phone on speaker so he could talk and drive at the same time. “I wanted to tell you that Scarlett left right after you did last night. I guess a person can’t run from their past, can they?”
“Riley came in here this morning wanting to give me a second chance. Then that old song by Conway played on the radio. Remember ‘A Bridge That Just Won’t Burn’?”
“No but I can understand the title after last night,” Blake said. “Are we okay, Allie, until we can talk face-to-face?”
“Did you hear what I said? He wants to give me a second chance; not me give him one.” Allie’s tone changed.
Blake chuckled. “Now I understand.”
“I’ll be back at work tomorrow or Friday at the latest. My goal is to have your bedroom done by Saturday evening,” she said. “We can talk then.”
“And then you’ll go out with me for dinner and a movie. Maybe up to Wichita Falls?” he asked.
“Tell you what. I’ll go out with you when I have that room done. It can be our celebration,” she answered.
Blake pumped his fist into the air and Shooter barked. “I could help you so it would be done by Saturday night.”
“How good at painting are you?” she asked.
“I can roll paint just as good as anyone and I’ll be more than glad to help out.”
“And now I have a customer so I’d best get off the phone. Thanks for calling, Blake, and yes, we’re okay for right now.”
It was another rancher needing a pickup load of feed and that didn’t take long. Allie checked on Granny and then went back to her stool. She should have been dancing a jig around the store that Blake had asked her out, but instead she had a rock in her chest.
“It’s because I’m falling right back into the same pattern I had with Riley. He calls the shots and I do the dancing,” she mumbled.
“No, you are not going dancing,” Granny said at her elbow. “You are not going to a bar where they do that hoochy-cooch dancing. Your sister is marryin’ a damn preacher and you’ll ruin her reputation. I’m going back over to your mama’s store. She made pinto beans and ham this morning and I’m hungry for more than doughnuts.”
Allie helped her into her coat and followed her to the door, stepped outside in the bitter cold and watched her until she was safely inside the convenience store, and then went back to her fretting stool. It was only dinner and a movie with a friend; it wasn’t a date. Not even after all those hot kisses, it still wasn’t a date. She’d ask Deke to go with them to prove that it was friendship and not the beginnings of a relationship.
Chapter Sixteen