“Yes, ma’am,” she said shortly.
Maudie looked up. “Ina Dean can smell a lie all the way from heaven or hell or wherever lies go once they are put out there. She’ll be expecting the party to be spectacular this year because Colton has a girlfriend, and if it’s done up cheap, the word will get out what’s going on over here. He will be plagued with women driving him crazy again. These past weeks have been very nice and I intend that it keeps on being nice.”
Maudie’s tone capitalized the word “He” like Colton was God.
“Have you liked any of his past relationships?” Laura asked.
“No, I have not. The first couple of girlfriends he had as a teenager liked him because he was on the football team and they wanted the prestige of hanging on his arm. The first serious girlfriend he had was the one right before he won the lottery. She wanted him to quit ranchin’. Mercy, he would die without dirt and cows and fences and hay in his life. So no, I have not liked his women,” Maudie answered.
“Okay, what’s first on the list?”
“Colton is sending six men to sweep out the barn. I expect they are already out there getting it done. At eight thirty, the first people arrive to put up all that chiffon that you are worried about. We ain’t buyin’ it. We’re just rentin’ it. That will take most of the morning and then right after lunch the folks with the tables will back their truck in and get those set up with the chairs around them.”
Laura watched Maudie run her finger down the page.
“And what do I do?” she asked.
“You oversee. You tell them where to put the tables, how much chiffon you want hung. Do you want it really full or just barely there? I can help but I won’t make the final decisions for you. You need to be seen, and all day people are going to be asking you questions, and believe me, the word will get out by nightfall about what you chose and how you looked. So put on your best jeans and boots and get ready to come across as his girlfriend that we all love so much that we’ve put her in charge of important things,” Maudie said.
Laura couldn’t think of a single thing to say to that so she finished her breakfast and went upstairs to put on her best jeans and boots. When she came out of her room, Maudie was waiting at the bottom of the stairs. She nodded and led the way through the foyer, the dining room, and kitchen and right out the back door.
She threw the keys across the hood of a shiny red truck and Laura caught them without even thinking.
“You are driving,” Maudie said. “The van is already there so they need to see you get out of the truck on the driver’s side. You can bet your sweet ass there will be pictures taken on the camera phones.”
“I’m not a celebrity and this sure ain’t Hollywood!”
“You got that right and there’s more than one billionaire in north Texas, but people do love to put everything they know and see on them damn computers for the whole world to gaze at. You mark my words, them things is going to be the undoing of the world before it’s all said and done.”
Laura came close to fainting dead away when the people who transformed the barn into a sheik’s tent handed her the bill for what they’d done that day.
“This is my first time around with your company. How do you want this paid?” she asked.
“We usually just give the bill to Miz Maudie or Andy and we get a check in the mail the next week,” the woman said.
Laura tucked it away in her notebook. “Thank you. We appreciate all of your hard work. I’ll give this to the right person.”
“One of my assistants has taken several before and after pictures for our website and scrapbook while we were working. Do you mind if we use them? I’m only asking because you are in several of the shots.”
“Whatever you want to post is fine, I’m sure,” she said. At least they’d asked before her face showed up on the social media sites.
Tables were set up by suppertime and ready for the coverings. Chairs were unfolded and placed exactly right. The stage for the band and the dance floor had been gotten out of storage and put together, thanks to the cowboys who knew as much about carpentry and electricity as they did pushing a broom.
By the end of the day Laura’s brain was mush and her butt was dragging. She wanted a long soaking bath instead of supper, but she also wanted to see Colton and Roxie. So she washed up and went to the supper table.
“I’m worn plumb out,” she announced.
“Well, it’s your own fault. If you’d took my side and made Aunt Maudie let me stay home, I could have helped,” Roxie said.
“You are right. Why don’t you just quit school altogether and forget about all your dreams? I bet Dillon wouldn’t forget all about you in a week or two if you weren’t there every day. In the sight of a month he wouldn’t even remember your name. And you can bet your sweet ass Rosalee would not be slinging snot all over her sexy little T-shirt because you weren’t there to interfere with her takin’ your boyfriend right out from under your nose. She might even send you one of them pretty little greeting cards with thank you written in purple ink on the front,” Laura snapped.
Maudie threw back her head and cackled.
Andy looked like he’d been pole-axed.
Rusty kept his eyes on his food.
“That was mean,” Roxie said. “If I hadn’t just handed that list to Colton, I’d make you spend the whole day with the preacher.”
“In that case, she’s right.” Andy grinned. “You’ve been spending too much time with Dillon. You see him all day at school and he’s over here most every night and on weekends. You need to branch out and make more friends.”
Roxie threw up her hands. “Is this gang up on Roxie night?”
Rusty looked at Colton. “You sure you got that list under wraps?”
He smiled and tapped his shirt pocket.
“Then it might be gang up on Roxie night. You’ve been blackmailing us all week, so you deserve it,” Rusty said.
Roxie giggled. “Maybe so, but it was worth every minute, so give it your best shot. And Laura, I ain’t about to quit school and let Rosalee win. Besides, I’m wearing that dress to the prom and I’m going to look just like Miranda Lambert in it and Rosalee can just eat
her
little heart out.”
“You want to decorate, well you can decorate. Tomorrow get up real early because you are going to be my gofer all day long,” Laura said.
“I betcha I’m finished with breakfast before you even get to the dining room,” Roxie challenged.
“We’ll see about that.” Laura nudged her with a shoulder like she used to do to Janet when they were kids.
***
Friday arrived in a flurry. Laura’s alarm went off and she bailed out of bed. Today Janet was coming to the ranch. Her sister would be there before bedtime and she couldn’t contain the excitement. It had been weeks since she’d seen Janet, but it seemed like years.
Roxie wandered into the dining room when Laura was on her second cup of coffee and grunted as she filled a mug for herself. “Guess you beat me after all. When does the first round of decorators get here anyway?”
“Eight o’clock. That’ll be the folks who bring the linens and tableware. The portable bar is coming at ten and those people stock it,” Laura answered.
Colton crossed the room and planted a kiss on Laura’s forehead. “Good mornin’. Guess y’all are plannin’ another big day, right?”
Roxie did a head wiggle. “Y’all don’t have to play like you are in love in front of me. I know what’s going on.”
“I liked you better when you were shy.”
Roxie’s head wobbled like one of those dolls. “Blame Laura. She’s my new role model.”
Colton looked over at Laura.
She raised a palm. “Woman has to stand up for herself.”
“See!” Roxie grinned.
“You two are ganging up on me so I’m going to change the subject. It looks like we’ve got ten teams for the games, right?”
“That’s right, but me and Dillon are going to win so the rest of you might as well sit back in your easy chairs and watch us,” Roxie said.
“My sister, Janet, is pretty competitive. She’ll give you and Dillon a run for your money, and believe me, she does not like to lose. She was an old bear when we were kids and played cards or Monopoly,” she said.
Roxie’s eyes got brighter with each sip of coffee. “That will just make our win sweeter. You and Colton will be busy pretending to like each other. Darcy and Andy will be trying to learn each other’s ways. The rest of them are married and they’ll be fighting.”
“You got it all figured out, don’t you?” Colton asked.
“Easy to figure things out if you just watch and listen,” she answered and then lowered her voice. “Speakin’ of which, they’re going to blindside y’all, so get ready to be pissed. And that means that Dillon and I will sure have a chance at winning.”
“Blindside?” Laura’s blood ran cold. “Who?”
“Rusty, Andy, and Aunt Maudie. That’s all the warning you’re going to get because I hear them coming right now. You can thank me later,” she said.
“Good morning,” Andy said in a cheery voice.
“Fine morning.” Rusty smiled.
Maudie laid a newspaper on the table. “Take a look at this.”
There was a picture of Laura in the white dress dancing with Colton. From the quality, it definitely was not shot with a camera phone. The caption said something about the billion-dollar cowboy bringing a Marilyn look-alike to a very prestigious party to honor scholarship recipients and there were rumors that they were secretly engaged. If they were she’d left her ring at home. It ended with a question about how big and flashy the diamond was.”
“What newspaper is this?” Laura gasped.
“Gossip rag out of Dallas,” Rusty said. “But it don’t matter. Probably more people read it than the ones that read the real-world stuff in
The
Wall
Street
Journal
.”
Colton chuckled.
“What’s so funny?”
“I still can’t believe people refer to me as that,” he said.
“What women didn’t know from the local gossip that you have a girlfriend will sure know it now,” Maudie said. “And they’ll be burning up the roads trying to get at you, even harder than before, since there’s competition involved now.”
“So we’ve come up with a plan,” Andy said.
Blindsided! Blindsided! Whatcha gonna do?
played in a loop through Laura’s head to the tune of an old song that she’d heard when she was a kid. Only it said something about a bad boy and what was he going to do.
“Oh, no!” Laura’s head shook emphatically. “You don’t have any more bargaining chips.”
“I’ve got one.” Andy stuck his hand in his pocket and pulled out a velvet box.
“What is that? And if it’s what I think it is, the answer is no,” Laura said.
“Don’t get all excited. I’m kin to you so I’m not proposing.” He snapped the box open and the biggest diamond she’d ever seen glittered in the dining room lights. “Don’t faint. It’s fake.”
Colton shook his head. “Just how far are y’all going to ask us to take this crazy relationship? If the women are still a problem after we are engaged, then do we have a pretend wedding?”
Maudie shook her head. “No, that would be going way too far. I just want you to propose to Laura at the party. You can dance with her the first time…”
“But we danced in Dallas,” Laura said.
The soup got thicker and thicker and she was sinking faster and faster.
“That don’t count. It’s the first dance in Ambrose that is the lucky one,” Roxie said. “It’s the one that shows everyone that you two are really together. They will take pictures and put it in the paper and Andy will put it on the ranch website for the whole world to see.”
Laura looked at Colton. Surely to God that man would protest the hoops they were asking him to jump through to keep the women from chasing him. But he didn’t. He was actually grinning rather than cussing a blue streak like she wanted to do.
She couldn’t do it! The lie was too big.
“If you agree, you don’t owe me one thin dime as of right now,” Andy said. “You have to stay on the ranch one more month so everyone will think you two are really involved, but after that you are free to leave.”
Her head pounded. Her pulse raced. Her breath caught in her chest.
“Why not? It’s no big deal.” Colton reached for the ring and shoved it into his pocket. “Hollywood people do things like that all the time just for the publicity.”
“We’re not Hollywood,” Laura gasped.
Almost ten thousand dollars forgiven for just nodding her head when he dropped down on one knee and proposed. She didn’t have to say a single word. Everyone would believe that she had agreed when he put the ring on her finger and they danced. She could leave in one month.
“Well?” Andy asked.
“One month,” she whispered.
“You got it and you don’t owe me anything,” Andy said.
“Why would you do that?”
“Because Colton is my best friend and he’s made me a rich man while I’ve made him even richer,” Andy answered.
“Want me to propose now and you can just show up at the party wearing the ring?” Colton asked.
She shook her head. The fantasy world sure did get tangled up in knots. Just when she thought she was ready to think about dating Colton in real life, now she was going to be engaged to him in the fantasy world.
“Okay, I’ll say yes,” she said.
“Good,” Maudie told her. “Now let’s get on about making this the best summer party ever on the Circle 6.”
Colton dropped another kiss on her forehead and left with Rusty. Andy escaped to his office. Maudie brought out the books again and Roxie winked at Laura.
“Are you wearing that white dress to the dance?” Roxie asked.
“No, she’s wearing the red dress she bought at Ross’s. And she’ll be wearing my pearls and her hair like it was in that picture right there,” Maudie said.
For ten thousand dollars, Laura would wear a burlap bag with a rope belt and go barefoot.
“Can Roxie do hair like that?”
“I’ve got that covered,” Maudie said with a grin. “And it’s a big surprise for all you girls, so don’t ask for details.”
Tears streamed down Roxie’s face. “I don’t want you to leave in a month but I want you to be out of debt and I want you to stay because you want to, not because you have to.”
Laura hugged the girl. “Always remember this, even if I’m all the way across the state: we are friends and we’ll stay that way.”
***
The barn was ready right before supper. What had been a rustic-looking old sale barn with a balcony around the top so the buyers could see the cattle being auctioned was now a gorgeous party room. All it needed was the band, the people, and the food and that was coming the next day.
At dusk, Janet pulled up in the front yard and Laura bailed off the porch like a little girl. She and Janet met halfway in an embrace that made Colton more than a little bit jealous. First, that he’d never had a sibling, and second, that he had to share Laura for the next three days.
He hadn’t meant to fall for her but she had flat-out stolen his heart and it bugged him that he’d have to take second place while Janet was there.
“Colton, come and meet my sister and my friend. This is Janet.” She hugged her sister again, “Meet my…” He caught the slight hesitation even if her sister didn’t.
“I’m Colton Nelson and it’s a real pleasure to welcome you to the Circle 6 Ranch. Please make yourself at home, and if you need anything let one of us know.” He slipped an arm around Laura’s waist and drew her to his side.
There, that felt better. She belonged glued to him, not to her sister. He still had a month to prove to her that she shouldn’t leave the ranch, and Janet had best not be putting crazy notions in her head, either.
“Nice place, even if it is way back in the sticks,” Janet said.
Janet was a smaller replica of Laura. Blonde, blue-eyed, minus the big boobs and round fanny, but she had a hard look about her. Like maybe she’d visited one too many bars and lived a whole lot of her life on the too-rough side of the tracks.
“That’s the way we like it.” Colton squeezed Laura’s waist.
***
She didn’t know what was going on, but the vibes weren’t right. Usually his hands anywhere on her body set her ablaze, but tonight they irritated her. She stepped out of his reach and said, “I love it out here. Tomorrow when it’s light you’ll have to see what I’m doing with the flower beds, Janet. Bring your suitcases on upstairs and I’ll show you where your rooms are.”
“I’ll get the suitcases, darlin’. You girls go on and play catch-up. I know you’ve got a lot to talk about.” He kissed her on the cheek and looked at Janet. “Backseat or trunk?”
She hit a button on the keychain and the trunk popped open. “Thank you. I’m afraid I brought too much but I didn’t know what all I’d need. And all of it isn’t mine. I brought the rest of Laura’s things too.”
“Why would you do that?” Laura asked.
“Because they were in my way and because you live here now.”
“No problem. There’s plenty of room for her to store her things here.” Colton smiled.
“Wow!” Janet said when they were inside the house. “That is one damn sexy cowboy you are dating. You should have told me that he was movie star gorgeous. Those pictures on the ranch website don’t do him a bit of justice, honey. Sexy and a billionaire. Does he have rich relatives?”