Love Drunk Cowboy

chapter 16

Grandfather and Grandmother drank martinis. Aunt Clydia had white wine. Barbara fixed a margarita and Aunt Paula had a Tom Collins.

“You got any beer?” Austin asked when she arrived.

“I don’t keep beer,” Barbara said.

“Too bad. Then I guess I’ll have Gentleman Jack, neat.”

Barbara’s quick intake of breath made Austin smile. If Jack Daniels was enough to make her suck air, then wait until she told them her really big news. She’d made up her mind and nothing was going to change it.

Her heart was in Terral.

The watermelon plants had brand new little melons growing on them now and she figured she knew a tiny measure of how mothers felt when they went off to war, leaving children behind. It was hard to be in one place when the heart was in another. Running back and forth had worked fine until she made up her mind, but now she knew how she wanted to spend the rest of her life, and it wasn’t working in an office.

Grandmother touched her arm. “Your mother tells me that you’ve been spending lots of time in southern Oklahoma at that strawberry farm your other grandmother left you.”

“Watermelon, not strawberry. I’ve got almost two thousand acres of melons. I can’t wait until the last part of June when some of them are ready to harvest so I can start making wine. I’ve been studying all of Granny’s old recipes.” Austin could hear the excitement in her voice as she reached for the short squatty glass of Jack Daniels.

“I’ll buy it from you. We’ll have it appraised and I won’t even quibble over the price,” Grandmother said.

Austin looked at her mother and aunts and saw a picture of herself in twenty-five years. In her grandmother she could see herself in fifty years. The Felder women had been popped out of the same mold for more than a century according to Grandmother. They were all tall, slim dark-haired women with blue eyes.

“Why would you want a watermelon farm?” Austin asked.

“I don’t. I’ll turn around and sell it at auction. If I lose money it’ll be a tax write-off. If I make money, I’ll give the profit to the local library and that will be a write-off. You need to concentrate on your job and promotion, not be exhausted from running back and forth to that hellhole,” Grandmother said.

Austin sipped her whiskey. It warmed her from her mouth to the bottom of her stomach, not totally unlike Rye’s kisses, only they went even deeper and heated her up much, much hotter.

“Thank you for the offer but my farm isn’t up for sale,” Austin said.

She’d chosen a simple black dress that evening with a double strand of oversized pearls that hung below her breasts. Her black heels were four inches high and open-toed to show a fresh pedicure of bright red polish that matched her fingernails. Her hair was straightened, layered, and needed trimming but she hadn’t had time to even think about calling Gemma.

“Why? You are going to sell it eventually anyway.”

“Thank you for the offer.” Austin politely moved to the other side of the room and backed up against the stones surrounding the cold fireplace. Aunt Clydia was telling Grandfather about the possibility of being appointed a judge. She’d gone from prosecuting lawyer to DA in her part of the world and now there was a nomination for a judgeship. His smile said it all. He was very proud of his daughter.

Barbara and Joan were discussing something in the business line; at least they were until Grandmother joined them. Now they were talking in quiet whispers and being obviously careful not to look at Austin.

Another sip of whiskey brought back the warmth and made her think of the amazing sex she and Rye had had the past weekend. She wished she was back in that jam-packed house rolling around on the bed, or hell’s bells, even the floor with him.

“Dinner is served, ma’am,” the cook said from the doorway leading into the dining room.

Everyone set their glasses on the bar and migrated that way with Austin bringing up the rear. Light from the cut glass prisms on the chandelier made the crystal water glasses and the wine glasses sparkle. Steam rose from bowls of spiced tomato soup and the waiters stood ready to refill glasses when they were emptied.

Grandfather sat at the head of the table with Grandmother on his right and Barbara on his left. Clydia had the other end of the table with Joan on her right and Austin on her left, which put Austin across the table from her mother.

“It’s been a long time since we’ve all set down to dinner together. This is nice.” Clydia smiled.

Everyone raised a glass and said, “Hear, hear!”

Austin picked up her knife and carefully buttered a bread stick, bit off a piece, and remembered the delicious stuff that Rye served with steaks.

Grandmother looked at Austin. “You look exhausted, my dear. By the summer’s end you’ll be ready for an asylum.”

“I like it in Terral. It’s peaceful. You should all fly into Dallas for a weekend and drive up there to see for yourself,” Austin said.

“No thank you. I don’t have that kind of time. I’m stretching it by promising to fly up here a couple of times a month to spend time with the family,” Clydia said seriously.

“What in the devil is that?” Barbara blurted out.

“What?” Joan looked around quickly and then realized her sister wasn’t staring at her but at Austin.

Barbara pointed. “That horrible mark on your neck. Good God, that’s so low class it’s…” she stammered.

“It’s a hickey,” Austin said.

Grandmother slapped her hand over her mouth but it didn’t keep the gasp from being heard all the way around the table.

The cook giggled.

Clydia shot her a look that froze her laughter in midair. Austin wondered how a person could make noise stop once it was out in the air. She might just get to be a judge with that kind of power.

“So you really have been down there in that hovel sleeping with the neighbor?” Barbara said.

“Didn’t sleep with him when I got this hickey. Got a Charlie horse in my leg before we could have sex. I started flailing around trying to get untangled from his long legs and arms and knocked him off the bed. He bumped his head on the nightstand and it bled. It was just too damn funny to have sex after that. So I got the hickey without getting screwed.”

“Good God! You…” Barbara was speechless after three words.

Grandfather held up a hand and said, “Tell us more about this fellow. Other than making a mark on your neck, what does he do?”

“He’s a rancher and owns rodeo bulls. He lives across the street from my property and I like him a lot. His name is Rye O’Donnell.”

“He lives in a trailer house,” Barbara said petulantly.

“Yes, he does. And he’s got a tattoo of barbed wire around his arm, too.”

“You are sure you didn’t have…” Grandmother couldn’t make herself say the word.

“Not when I got the hickey. Don’t ask me about later on or about last night.” Austin grinned.

“What are you saying?” Joan asked. She wasn’t smiling.

Grandfather was.

Grandmother had taken her hand from her mouth and her eyes were big as saucers.

The two waiters’ jaws were clamped so tight they couldn’t smile for fear Aunt Clydia’s glare would melt them into a pile of ashes right there on the white carpet.

“I’m saying that tomorrow morning I’m going to my office and packing up my stuff in a box. Derk can have the promotion. I’m going to move to Terral and raise watermelons. I hate getting in the car and coming to Tulsa. I want to stay down there among all that clutter and drive a tractor every day or else mow the lawn or visit with Molly and Greta on Friday after I make my weekly trip to the bank. I don’t want to be here. I don’t give a shit about the job I’ve been doing. I just want to go home.”

“This is your home. It’s where you were born and lived your whole life,” Joan said.

“But Terral is where my heart is.”

“You let that man talk you into this, didn’t you?” Barbara said.

“Rye doesn’t even know I made this decision. He isn’t expecting me until Thursday. I didn’t even know I was going to make it until a few hours ago. The closer I got to Tulsa this week the more I wanted to turn the car around and go home and make sure my watermelons are growing right and that Molly and Greta haven’t died while I was gone.”

A smile turned up the corners of Barbara’s mouth. “You are making a very foolish decision, but when it falls in a heap around your ears, you can always come home and run the dealership for me. If you go through with this crazy notion I will not give you the business but I will hire you as manager. At least you’ll have a job when you get tired of living in squalor.”

“If GM goes belly-up after all this bailout shit, I’ll return the favor. You can come to Terral and help me make watermelon wine.”

Barbara’s eyes narrowed to slits. “You’re even talking like those rednecks.”

“Thank you.”

Clydia held up a palm. “Enough! Austin, you have played the shock value card enough for one night.”

Austin laid her napkin beside her plate. “I have packing to do, so I’m leaving. Y’all enjoy the dinner and please don’t let me ruin anything else. I’ll call you tomorrow when I get home, Mother.”

She marched out of the house with her head held high but her temper had gone far beyond the boiling point. How dare they treat her like a child when they’d treated her like an adult since the day she was born!

On the drive home her phone rang. Dreading another fight with her mother, she almost didn’t answer it. On the fourth ring, she checked the ID to find that it was her boss, and her first thought was that her mother wasted no time! He offered her a three-month sabbatical to think things over before she absolutely made it final.

“Thank you but I want a clean break. I want to move to Terral without thinking about coming back to Tulsa.”

“I want you to be happy, Austin. Derk can step right into your office and the promotion. I’d rather leave knowing you were taking care of my job, but he’s capable.”

“Thank you. I’ll be in and clean out my office tomorrow morning then.”

She pulled into her garage and said good-bye. When she opened the door into her apartment she flopped down on the sofa and stared at the ceiling for a long, long time. Was she being too rash? Was her mother right? Would she grow to hate the town, the people, and the hard work? Was she severing the ties too completely? Should she take the sabbatical and give it some time?

When no answers came floating down from the crystal light fixture in the recessed ceiling, she threw her hand over her eyes. Granny’s face appeared as if it were on the other side of a dense fog.

Good decision. Don’t worry about tomorrow. It will take care of itself. Be happy today.

Granny’s face faded and the misty gray fog disappeared, then Rye materialized. He didn’t say a word but the expression on his face said it all. In the background Gemma was dancing around like a sugared up six-year-old after a day at the rattlesnake festival. Colleen had folded her hands over her chest and was shaking her head back and forth. Dewar and Raylen were both patting Rye on the shoulder.

Austin moved her hand and her eyes sprung open. “Guess Colleen and Mother will have to learn the hard way. If this works between me and Rye, that’s great. If it doesn’t, I’m still going to grow watermelons and make wine. He’s not the reason I’m leaving. He’s just the icing on the cake. But hey, I can eat cake without icing too.”

Her cell phone rang and she dug around in her purse until she had it in her hand and answered on the third ring without looking at Caller ID.

“Hey, girl,” Gemma said. “Are you busy? I’d like to run something by you.”

“Not a bit. What’s on your mind?”

“It’s about the rodeo this weekend. There’s a post-rodeo concert with Tracy Lawrence. I’m scheduled to ride Saturday night. I know you don’t get home until Thursday night and I’ve got appointments on Friday so I can’t leave until Friday afternoon. Want to go with me? You can room with me and Colleen or else I’ll call down and make arrangements to add a room to our block for the summer.”

“I’d love to go but I think I’d rather have a room of my own. No offense but…”

“None taken. Colleen is a great person. She’ll see the light. It just takes her awhile.”

“How’d you get to be so smart?” Austin asked.

“They saved the best ’til last. I promise we’ll get you home in time to drive back to Tulsa on Sunday.”

Austin grinned. She wasn’t telling Gemma before she told Rye.

“That will be great,” she said.