Love Drunk Cowboy

chapter 7

She reached for the wine bottle and the sky tilted slightly to the left. She’d never gotten tipsy on two glasses of any kind of wine before. Maybe it was because she’d put it down on an empty stomach or drank it too fast. Whatever, she had to slow down or she’d be more than mellow. She’d be downright uninhibited before the night was out and Molly would win that bet about her sweet-talking Rye into bed.

She stifled a giggle and realized that she was indeed getting pretty tipsy on watermelon wine. She checked Rye’s glass and was surprised to see that he was still working on number one. It damn sure wouldn’t take much to remedy that.

“Open this bottle and let’s see if it’s as good as the last one.”

“But there’s still some in the other bottle.” Rye looked up and realized it was almost empty.

He uncorked the second bottle, downed what was left in his glass, and poured more for both of them.

“Yep, every bit as good.”

“I believe you are right.”

Would the flirting end with a walk across the road and lingering on the porch after a good night kiss? Is that what she wanted? Did she really want to start a relationship with Rye?

She was sitting at a picnic table with another glass of sweet red wine in her hand, watching a hunky cowboy grill steaks and didn’t know what the hell she was going to do. The wine was heady enough that she wondered what the alcohol content was. One measly glass of any kind of wine had never caused light-headedness before. But then she hadn’t eaten since lunch and skipped supper because she’d had ice cream with the girls at the drugstore.

She remembered the hired hands’ trailer looking different the last time she came to Terral. It had been faded turquoise and white and not nearly as long. There had been a rattling old air-conditioner propped up on wooden legs that stayed wet from the condensation and the porch was nothing but a set of wooden steps that were rotting away.

“When did Granny buy the hired help a new trailer?”

“About five years ago. Got it real cheap and had the guys do some work on it when they got here that year. They put on the porch and wanted to dig up a garden out back but she told them that they already took care of her garden and could have anything they wanted out of it. It’s got three bedrooms so she put six twin beds in there. The living room has television and a couple of used sofas. They love it.”

“Well, this new one sure looks better than that old turquoise one.”

I’d rather be talking about you than a used trailer house, he thought. About you staying and running that watermelon farm. Why didn’t Granny Verline prepare me for the way you’d make me feel?

The steaks put off a heady aroma that made her stomach growl. “Sorry about that. I’m really hungry so don’t be thinking you are going to get half my steak. You touch it, I’ll put a fork in your hand.”

Rye chuckled. “I like a woman who appreciates a good steak. Don’t know that I could ever…” he stopped and took a sip of wine. He’d been about to say that he could never fall for a vegetarian.

“Ever what?” Austin asked.

“Ever be a vegetarian.”

“Me either. One of my aunts is a vegan.”

“How many aunts do you have who’d put out a hit on anyone you got serious about?”

“Two. There were three girls in my mother’s family. Their mother was a career woman. She helped her husband, my grandfather, build the dealership. No, rephrase—she built it and he sold cars. She had the business sense and passed it on to her daughters. Mother was the only one who married. The other two are married to their careers.”

I’d rather be kissing you or making love to you under the stars than hearing about your fancy-pants aunts.

“And you? You going to grow up to be a vegetarian?”

“Hell, no! I like steak too well to be a vegan. When will it be ready?”

Holy shit! Either Terral or watermelon wine is rubbing off on me! I’m cussin’ just like Granny!

“Five minutes. I’ll bring out the salad and bread. The potatoes are already done. Would you please refill our wine glasses while I get it on the table?”

He carried out a salad in a clear crystal bowl with a hinged plastic fork and spoon stuck in the middle. “Granny gave me her recipe for dressing. I hope you like it because I’ve already added it to the salad.”

“The oil and vinegar with all the seasonings?” Austin asked.

“That’s the one.” He put a hand on her shoulder and set the salad on the table. He’d like to forget supper, take her to bed, and touch her body all over at least a dozen times.

“You’ve got to write it down for me. I love that dressing and never even thought to have her copy it for me.”

“It’s in her recipe book. The loose-leaf binder up in the cabinet above the microwave where she keeps her cookbooks, all except for her wine secrets. They’re on the computer in the wine cellar.”

He set a small bowl in front of each plate on the table, opened the grill lid, and stuck a fancy fork in each steak. “Looks done.”

“What is that thing?”

“A meat fork. It shows when they are medium rare, rare, or well done,” he said. And if you stuck one in me, it would register off the chart with heat.

“Handy looking little thing. If I ever buy a house and get a grill, I’ll have to purchase one of those.”

“You have a house right across the street so I guess we need to make a trip to Walmart and buy you a meat fork.”

“You know what I mean.”

“So you don’t own your home in Tulsa?”

“I rent an apartment.”

“I couldn’t live like that. All scrunched up with neighbors so close they could hear…” he stopped before he said “bedsprings.”

She cocked her head to one side. “Hear what?”

“A beer burp,” he said quickly and plopped a steak in the middle of her plate and one on his. Then he shifted foil wrapped potatoes beside them and made a hasty trip back inside to bring out a loaf of French bread he’d heated in the oven. “It’s not homemade. I don’t do so well with bread so I just buy it or pop a can open.”

“I’m hungry enough that I might even eat the wrapper.”

“Well, saw off a piece of that Angus and tell me how you like it.”

She cut a bite-sized piece and put it in her mouth. “Mmmmm,” she said the whole time she chewed.

The only thing better would be a long romp between the sheets with you. God! Where are these thoughts coming from? I bet they aren’t coming from God. More likely from Lucifer who set up shop in my brain from the minute I figured out you weren’t a seventy-year-old man with a gray moustache.

“So you like it?”

“It’s wonderful. If my aunt ever came down here and ate your steak they’d convert to carnivores and cowboys.”

“Now that’s the best compliment I’ve ever had.”

“Oh! My! God! This bread is…”

“Good? Bad? Or what?” He frowned.

“As good as the steak. What did you do to it?”

“That’s my secret. I whip real butter and like the good KFC Colonel does to his chicken, I add herbs and spices. And you won’t find the recipe in Granny’s cookbooks. I don’t give it away.”

She blushed. “And what happens if a woman wants bread and you don’t want to give it to her?”

“We still talking about this bread?” His grin widened.

“Of course.”

“Then I suppose she will simply have to go hungry.”

A smile tickled the corners of Austin’s wide mouth as she ate her dinner. She chewed slowly even though she was so hungry she wanted to wolf it all down and then fight him for what was left on his plate.

“Tell me how you came to live in Terral, anyway?” she asked.

“My mother’s brother, Uncle Terrance, lived out in west Texas. He’d inherited a farm from one of their uncles back when he was about twenty. Long story short, he was out rounding up cattle one day and was coming down a small rise when his horse tumbled and his foot hung up in the saddle. He couldn’t get out and the horse rolled on him. A rib pierced his heart and he died instantly.”

“I’m sorry. Were you close to him?”

“I went every summer and stayed a couple of weeks with him. When I was a teenager I worked summers for him. I was twenty-five when he died and he left everything he owned to me. I didn’t want to live in west Texas so I sold his ranch and used the money to buy this one. There was an old house sitting right here but I tore it down, used the same electric and water lines to hook up my trailer, and moved his cattle all up here.”

“So you just raise Angus?” Anything to keep her mind off that broad chest and the barbed wire tat on his arm.

“That’s what I raise for beef cattle. I also ride bulls and keep rodeo stock and in the summer I’m in Mesquite, Texas, every weekend making a few dollars with them,” he said.

“Did your Uncle Terrance do the rodeo stuff too?” Keep him talking about cows and bulls. Surely that wouldn’t conjure up visions of her cheek lying on that barbed wire tat.

Rye nodded. “Yes, he did. Only he was a bronc rider like Raylen. I learned to pick out good bulls for rodeo from him and he taught me a lot.”

“How to make this bread?” She smiled brightly.

Rye’s eyes twinkled. “You are a sly one but it won’t work, Austin Lanier.”

“Never underestimate me, Rye. I’m used to getting what I want whether it’s by hard work or plain old good luck,” she told him.

“And what do you want?”

“The recipe for what you dose up the butter with for this bread.”

“Good luck. You’ll need it.”

“Fair enough. So you moved here ten years ago. That was when you were twenty-five. What did you do before that?”

“Rode a few bulls. Finished high school. Went to college.”

“What did you study?”

“Agribusiness. Finished college. Spent a year out on Uncle Terrance’s place and decided I didn’t like it out there. Did a few rodeo rounds but I’m not as good as Dewar or Raylen. Made a few dollars though. Worked at an agribusiness center in Plano for a year but hated the city and couldn’t wait to come home every Friday night. Was saving to buy my own place. Living cheap. Driving an old truck. Then I had the good luck to have a quick buyer on the west Texas property and I bought this place. Not much exciting. Just plain old living. Now tell me about you?”

“You already know about me. Granny kept you well informed. You said so yourself. Why did you choose a barbed wire tat?”

“It’s a long story. Only Gemma and I know the real reason.”

She waited.

“Okay. My girlfriend dumped me. I was drunk and I decided to get a tat to remind myself never to trust another woman. On my left arm because that’s where the vein is that runs from the finger to the heart according to the old wives’ tale about why we wear wedding rings on our left hands.”

“Why barbed wire?”

“At the time I decided to stretch barbed wire around the vein so that no woman would ever hurt me again. It was a symbol to never let anyone near my heart again.”

“Have you?”

“Not yet,” he lied. “How about you? Fellers?”

“A few.”

“Serious?”

“A couple.”

“Ever lived with one?”

She shook her head. “Never got that serious.”

“Why? Are they stupid?”

“I tend to turn men off.”

He cocked his head to one side and stared at the beautiful woman sitting across the table from him. Dark hair floating like strands of silk to her shoulders, eyes the blue of a summer sky with thick lashes, lips that begged to be tasted on an hourly basis. Were all the men in Tulsa brain-dead?

She took a deep breath and went on, hoping that she didn’t get tangled up in her words. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d gotten tipsy and wasn’t sure what might happen.

“You’d think I was a blonde. You’ve heard all those blonde jokes. Well, most men seem to expect that kind of mentality from me. Mindless stupidity. They want a robot that looks like a movie star and performs in the kitchen like Rachael Ray and in the bedroom like a whorehouse madam. By the second date they realize I’m none of the above and they walk me to the door, give me a peck on the cheek, and I never hear from them again.”

He finished the last bite of steak and asked, “And the two who did call back?”

“One in college. We were in our rebellious years and that was our connection. When I settled down to study for my master’s he went on to the next rebellious girl. The other was a workaholic just like me. We had everything in common on a business plane but no actual vibes on a physical level. You’d make any woman a wonderful wife the way you can cook. You think you’ll ever find a woman you can trust?”

“Never know. I might. I did once but Granny was too old for me. She said so herself when I proposed.” Rye reached over to a chair pushed up beside the grill and touched a button on the top of a portable CD player. A country piano and drumbeat started then Hank Locklin began singing “Please Help Me, I’m Falling.” He stood up and held out his hand. “May I have this dance, please, ma’am.”

“Dinner and dancing too. This is a date,” she said.

“Yes, it is. Did you have a doubt that it was?”

She shrugged and melted into his arms, her face on his chest where she could hear his heart doing double time. She started with one hand around his neck and the other in his hand. Before Hank finished the first song and George Jones began singing, “Walk through this World with Me,” she had both arms around his neck and he had her hugged up to him with his hands on the small of her back. The porch became a dance floor and the deck the best honky tonk she’d ever set foot inside.

“Where did you find a CD like this?”

“One of those things on television. You know those ‘get this for only nineteen ninety-nine—but wait! There’s more!’ Well, I ordered this box called Lifetime of Country Romance. It’s all the oldies.”

They danced through another song and then Willie Nelson began singing “Georgia on My Mind.” She and Rye were swaying and moving their feet very little by then. She would have gladly stayed in that vertical position until eternity. It was peace wrapped in wanton desire; heat and angel wings all rolled into one.

Rye was afraid to stop dancing for fear she’d go home, and he didn’t want to ever let go of her. Willie sang about how an old sweet song kept Georgia on his mind. Well, that CD would always put Austin on his mind. He shut his eyes and inhaled the sweet coconut smell of her shampoo.

“Tired?” he asked.

“Not at all. I haven’t danced in years. Is that ‘Johnny and June’? I haven’t heard this song in years,” she said.

“It’s ‘If I Were a Carpenter.’ Someday I’ll get the family to sing it and we’ll dance on the grass in our bare feet,” he said.

His warm breath on her neck weakened her knees and made her glad she could lean on him. “Oh, my Lord, is that Ray Price? Daddy loved him. Momma hates country music so it was a fight in our house. Daddy finally kept his music in the den and listened to it after she went up to bed.”

She leaned back when the song ended and looked up at Rye. His eyes were all dreamy and soft and she was drawn to them like a moth to blazing flame. It was a dangerous situation and the closer she got the hotter the fire, but it was so intriguing she had to see what it was all about. Her gaze had shifted to his lips and hers parted slightly just thinking about a long, lingering steamy kiss.

Rye could have gone swimming in her crystal clear blue eyes. Hell, he could have gone skinny-dipping in them and stayed there until his hair turned gray. He knew he was a goner when he looked at her lips. If it had meant hanging from the nearest oak tree for kissing her, he’d have put the noose around his neck and gotten ready to hear his neck snap.

The kiss was a completely out of control wildfire. Austin couldn’t hear for the buzzing in her ears. She parted her lips and nipped his lower lip gently, tasting the remains of the steak and watermelon wine. She felt as if she were drowning and couldn’t breathe and she didn’t give a damn. Drunk. Sober. Somewhere in between or over the top, it didn’t matter. She belonged in his arms and his lips belonged on hers. Simple as that.

Rye’s heart was thumping in his ears like a bass drum. His tongue eased past her lips and tasted watermelon wine. It was even headier than what he’d drunk out of the glass. He’d hit the repeat button and the CD started over again with Hank Locklin asking her to close the door to temptation. Well, it was damn sure too late for that to happen. If Austin closed the door to temptation now, he’d kick the damn thing down with his boot heel.

He picked her up like a bride and carried her into the house where they both collapsed on the sofa. In between heart-stopping kisses, he untied the knot in the shirt and ran his hand up her naked back, hugging her up against him so tight she could barely breathe.

“We shouldn’t,” she whispered.

“I know,” he answered but didn’t stop.

His callused hands touching her bare skin caused a flooding desire that she couldn’t and didn’t want to stop. She didn’t care if they shouldn’t; there was no way she wouldn’t, not at that point. She could feel the heat and hardness of his desire pressing against her belly and she knew she was driving him as crazy as she felt. Her panties were so wet she wanted to squirm right out of them and as she ground her hips against him a moan escaped her lips and in that moment his bare hand teased its way up her spine and his fingers fumbled with the fastening of her bra.

Her skin was silky satin to his rough hands. In a flash he understood addicts if they wanted drugs as badly as he wanted to touch every inch of her body. He was unhooking her bra and panting against her throat when the phone rang.

“Ignore it,” she said breathlessly.

He tasted her earlobe. “I intend to.” She threw her head back to give him access to her throat and felt his tongue rasping against her collarbone as their hips pressed hard against each other.

Four rings later the answering machine picked up. “Rye, this is Kent. Don’t know where you are but I’m about a mile from your house. Two of your rodeo bulls are out of the fence and on the road. I tried your cell phone but it went to voice mail and I left a message. I’ll be there in five minutes, so if you’re in the shower, get your britches on. We’ve got to get those bulls in before they get into Miz Verline’s garden. Her granddaughter will kill you graveyard dead, man, if those bulls tear up her vegetables.”

Rye groaned and rolled off the sofa. “Damn it!”

“Estefan would kill you if the garden was ruined. Verline’s granddaughter would rather kill the bulls.” Austin buttoned her shirt, retied it, and stepped out onto the deck cussing the whole way. Damn it all! Verline probably came back as a ghost and spooked those damned bulls so bad they broke through the barbed wire fence and were swimming across the Red River into Texas. Why would she do that? Bring her to Terral, let her find the wine, and then spook the bulls so she couldn’t have Rye?

Rye switched on a lamp and headed down the hall to the bathroom. He didn’t even know that she’d unsnapped his shirt until he noticed it in the mirror as he washed his face with icy water. He quickly fastened it back and was in the living room when Kent knocked on the door and popped his head inside.

“Anybody home?” he yelled.

Austin poked her head in the sliding doors. “What shall I do with the leftover salad? Oh, hello, you are Kent, right?”

“Sorry to interrupt your dinner but there’s bulls out of the fence,” Kent said.

“I’m sorry, Austin. Just leave it all.” Damn, the woman was good. Anyone would think that they’d been on the deck the whole time and he’d come in for a bathroom break.

Austin tried to put an innocent look on her face. “Are you sure? You cooked. I don’t mind cleanup. Can I help get in the bulls?”

“Naw, we’ll take care of it, ma’am.” Kent blushed.

“Okay, then I’m going home. Thanks for supper. Good night,” Austin said.

“Good night. I’ll see you tomorrow then?” Rye winked.

“I’ll be in the fields all day,” she said.

“And we’ll be fixing fence for sure,” Rye said.

***

Austin kicked her flip-flops off at the door, slid down the back of it, and sighed. Was it the kisses that made her dizzy or the wine or the combination of the two? Whatever had done it, it sure enough had the whole room rolling like one of those little airplanes that takes tourists up for a ride.

Two bulls would be hamburger meat if she had her way right then. “Maybe it was an omen,” she whispered into the dark room. “Another five minutes and his house would have been one big bonfire. Kent could have used it to barbecue those two rodeo bulls.”

She forced her still-weak knees to carry her to the bathroom where she peeled off her clothes and giggled. If Verline knew what she’d been doing in that shirt and capris she would pass little green crab apples. She turned on the shower above the old claw-footed tub and pulled the curtain around on the oval rod. She took an icy shower and wrapped herself snuggly in her grandmother’s terry robe that hung on the back of the door.

She bent down, picked up the shirt she’d worn, shut her eyes, and inhaled deeply. Steaks, wine, and his shaving lotion. She held it to her bare breast and carried it to the bedroom where she found a Blake Shelton CD from her case and slid it into her laptop computer. She punched the buttons until she came to number seven and waltzed around the floor, eyes shut again, the shirt held close to her chest.

Blake sang about a little house made of nails and wood, a place that he called home. He said it was a place where the world couldn’t touch him anymore. She two-stepped to the bathroom and listened to the song again. She sashayed back to the bedroom where she fell back on the bed and curled up with the shirt beside her head on the pillow.

She fell asleep and dreamed of Rye.

***

It was past midnight when Kent and Rye got the two rangy old rodeo bulls herded into the pasture and the break in the fence repaired. Kent fanned his face with his sweat-stained cowboy hat. Rye leaned against the side of the pickup truck and wiped sweat from his forehead with the tail of his shirt. He caught a whiff of her perfume; something sensually floral that conjured up a vision of a field of white daisies.

“So now that we got them devils where they belong, tell me about your date tonight. Leave it to a bunch of bulls to ruin it for you,” Kent said.

“Nothing to tell,” Rye said.

“Which means you ain’t goin’ to kiss and tell.” Kent laughed.

Rye shrugged.

“You trying to use your good looks to get at that land or did you fall for that girl the first time you saw her in that booth?” Kent asked.

“You’re as bad as my sisters,” Rye said with a tired chuckle.

“You ain’t goin’ to answer me so I’m going home to get a shower. I feel like it’s already July. Them critters can give a man a workout, can’t they? And leave your phone turned on. If Tom Walters had been able to get a hold of you, he wouldn’t have called me.”

Rye swiped at his face one more time and inhaled Austin’s scent on his shirtsleeve. He crawled up in the passenger’s seat of Kent’s bright red Dodge truck and almost fell asleep before they made it two miles to his house.

“See you in the morning. Evidently we’d best do some more fence repair,” Kent said.

“Hey, thanks for taking the call and for the help. Why don’t you take tomorrow morning off and we’ll start at noon? That’ll make up for the hours you spent here tonight,” Rye said.

Kent shook his head. “No thanks. I’ll use the hours another time. Maybe when Momma needs one of her therapy things down at the hospital or a treatment. I’d rather get that fence taken care of proper as have to put in another night like this. Besides, it’s cooler in the morning time.”

“Okay, then I’ll see you about eight.” Rye opened the door and headed for the house with an over-the-shoulder wave.

He stripped in the bathroom, throwing his dirty jeans and socks in the hamper. If she’d been there when he returned they’d be showering together. Imagining her in the tight little shower with him caused a physical desire that made him realize he had to rein in his wild thoughts or it would be a long, aching night.

“I’m too tired for more than one cold shower,” he mumbled as he washed his hair.

He turned the water off when he finished bathing and wrapped a towel around his waist. He padded barefoot to the kitchen, poured a tall glass of cold milk, downed it all before he came up for air, and then remembered the dishes on the patio.

“I’m too tired to deal with that now,” he said. “Damned old bulls, anyway. If they’d minded their business she would be curled up in my arms and we’d be making love after a long, long bout of lovemaking.”

He tossed the towel into the hamper on his way to his bedroom and fell into the bed. When he shut his eyes he envisioned her moving slowly around the porch as they danced to the old tunes. He dreamed of the two of them lying on a soft blanket in a field of daisies where there were no phones or bulls to get out of the pasture.