“I did not!”
“So what are the rules?”
“It doesn’t matter. Like you said, Colton, you can’t change what you come from,” she said softly.
“No, but if you work at it, you can change what you become.”
Was he talking to himself or to her? He wondered.
He leaned across the space and brushed a light kiss across her lips. “I’m leaving now. We both need to think before we talk any more. See you this evening. Rusty and I are going over to Sherman this morning to pick up a load of barbed wire. After supper, maybe we’ll take a walk?”
“I’ll look forward to it.”
***
The sweetness of the kiss didn’t surprise her as much as the fact that the monarch wasn’t spooked and stayed on his pant leg halfway across the yard.
Evidently Maudie had gotten the news via phone call from Colton because she was on the phone with the social worker at noon when Laura finished the yard work and went inside for dinner. Maudie held up a finger, said a few more words, and then snapped her phone shut.
She looked at Laura and asked, “Hungry?”
“Starving,” Laura answered.
“It’s just me and you today. Andy has gone to the bank. Rusty and Colton are still drooling over tractors trying to decide which one to buy. I swear that boy still pinches pennies even though he could buy ten of those tractors and not put a dent in his bank account.”
“What about Roxie?” Laura made a sandwich and dipped a bowl of soup from the Crock-Pot on the buffet.
“I got the story from Colton, from the principal, and from the social worker. They were all impressed with you, wanted to know if you had counselor training,” Maudie said.
“Not me! I was just trained by the orneriest sister God ever put on the face of the earth. Most of the time it turned out that whatever trouble she was in, she’d brought on herself. But Roxie’s put up with enough, Maudie.”
“Thanks for stepping in for her. She’s come out of her shell since you came to the ranch. It’ll mean a lot to her that you took up for her. She’ll still have some punishment when she gets home because that’s the rules, but I appreciate what you did. Now, let’s talk about what’s going on the rest of the week. Tomorrow night you’ve got that dinner in Gainesville.”
Laura groaned. “I thought all the party stuff was over.”
“Just one more this month. It’s the North Texas Angus Association dinner. They have a social evening several times a year for the members and their spouses or girlfriends. It’s not like that thing in Dallas. The men folks wear jeans and no ties. The ladies dress in anything from fancy jeans and boots to cute little dresses, depending on how much sag and bag they’ve got. So don’t worry about it.”
“Then I don’t have to go to Tressa’s or shop anymore?” Laura asked.
“You can wear what you had on that first time you went to church and look just fine,” Maudie answered. “I hear you and Colton had a fight. Did you talk it out yet?”
“Neither of us are much on talking it out but we’re trying. I bottle things up and have trust problems. He bottles things up and has commitment problems. But what does it matter? This is all a farce anyway, isn’t it?” Laura asked.
“Is it? From the way he looks at you, I kind of thought you’d moved into reality. But that is y’all’s business. The yard is looking very nice. I told Colton when we moved into this big old place that the backyard had potential. Guess you’re bringing that out as much as you are Roxie’s potential.”
“Thank you,” Laura tucked her chin down and blushed.
Janet called right after lunch. She’d landed in Amarillo, drove home, unpacked, and gone to a meeting.
“Been a busy girl, haven’t you?” Laura laughed.
“I’ve got something to say and I mean it with my whole heart. And I don’t want you to butt in one time while I’m talking or I’ll start crying.”
There was a long, pregnant pause.
“Well?” Janet snapped.
“You told me not to butt in. I’m listening,” Laura said.
“Okay, number one. Don’t you dare try to scam Colton. He’s in love with you. He might not know it and it might take him a long time to figure it out because he’s not a man that loves easily but give him time.”
“Number two?” Laura asked.
“I told you not to butt in! Number two. I don’t want you to move back here. I want to learn this business of standing on my own two feet and I want to be as strong and as brave as you are. I won’t do it if I can run to you with every problem like I have my whole life. And I want your promise if I stumble that you’ll make me get back up and try again but that you won’t help me financially.”
Another pause.
“Well?” Janet said again.
“I’m crying. Give me a minute to blow my nose.”
“Do you promise?”
“Yes, I do,” Laura said. “Is there a number three? Do I need to bring the box of tissues from the bathroom or is this one going to do?”
“There is a number three. I met a man at the meetings. He’s got the same problems I have but he’s been clean for two years, three months, and sixteen days now. He’s a good man and he’s asked me out a dozen times. I didn’t have the courage to say yes until I saw you with Colton. We are going to dinner tonight.”
Laura gasped.
“His name is James Radford and he’s a lawyer. He lives in Amarillo. He lost everything with his addiction problems but he’s slowly getting back on his feet. He had a ranch north of Hereford. His wife left him and his two grown kids won’t talk to him. He’s fifteen years older than I am and that’s all I know.”
Laura inhaled deeply. “Why this man?”
“Because he looks at me like Colton looks at you and there’s a flutter in my heart when he does and if you can overcome our past, so can I. I’m scared out of my mind, sister, but I’m giddy just thinking about going out with him.”
More tears flooded Laura’s face. “Truth is that I’m scared out of my mind too.”
“I didn’t hear that. My wings aren’t quite ready to fly out of the nest, and until they are I need you to be the strong one just a little longer. I had a wonderful weekend. I even liked that church service that Roxie conned us into. It was all better than any therapy session I’ve ever been to. I love you, Laura.”
“Me too,” Laura choked out.
She threw herself back on the bed, grabbed a pillow, and sobbed into it for several minutes. Lord, what a morning!
***
Laura was sitting on the porch when the school bus pulled up into the front yard and Roxie got out. She walked like her boots were filled with concrete and slumped down in the rocking chair next to Laura as if a full-grown Angus bull rested on her shoulders.
“Does she have the gallows built?” she whispered.
“I didn’t see a rope and she left the guillotine in the barn.” Laura smiled.
“Thank you for standing up for me,” Roxie said. “Rosalee was playing all sweet and innocent until you got there. The social worker didn’t believe a word of what I said and everything that Rosalee said.”
“Why?”
“You know.”
Laura smiled and patted Roxie on the shoulder. “She did look pretty pitiful with that hangdog look and that black eye. What did Dillon say about the whole thing?”
“He said that he should’ve been the one to take care of it. She’s been talkin’ smack about me for a whole week and texting everyone all weekend about how she was going to get me sent away so she could have Dillon.”
“So tell me what do you and Dillon do when you break up?” Laura asked.
“You know!”
“I really don’t.”
“We text and we talk on the phone and we say we’re sorry and then we kiss a lot,” she said. “Isn’t that what you did when you broke up with your boyfriends?”
“I didn’t have a cell phone,” Laura said.
“I knew it! You
are
old!”
Maudie came out on the porch, sat down on the swing, and looked at Roxie. “What have you got to say? Are you aware that if Laura hadn’t gotten the straight story things could be very different right now? You promised if you could live with me that you’d stay out of trouble.”
“I got tired of her smart mouth. And I did start the fight so I’ll take whatever punishment here at home that I have to. I got three weeks in-school suspension for fighting. But at least Rosalee isn’t in the room with me. It turned out that she’s been living with her older sister because she got in trouble for bullying down in Louisiana. Her sister came to the school and checked her out. She’s going back to Louisiana to her momma’s house.”
“How did you find that out? Weren’t you in suspension?” Maudie asked.
“Heard it on the bus on the way home.”
“You are grounded for a week. You can’t go anywhere next weekend except to church. That includes going out with Dillon. You can keep your cell phone and your computer and I don’t care if you text or talk to him, but you can’t go out with him. And next time, you block that first hit and then wipe up the school yard with anyone who bullies you. But you do not start a fight. Do you understand me?” Maudie asked.
“Yes, ma’am,” Roxie said.
“Good, then that’s enough talk about it. Come on upstairs and let me clean up that scratch properly. Never know what a voodoo witch might have under her claws,” Maudie said.
Laura didn’t know whether to giggle or cry again. Both emotions were so close to the surface that she was afraid to try out either one. So she dug her cell phone from out of her shirt pocket and sent her first text message to Colton.
Talk?
In seconds her phone dinged and she looked down to see:
When
and
where?
She typed in:
Snow
cones
at
the
school
yard
after
supper.
The message back said:
Yes!
Cool night air blowing through open pickup windows, flashes of lightning, and rolling thunder all blended together for something so amazing that Laura didn’t have a sane thought in her head.
“How did we get in the backseat? I don’t remember crawling over here,” she gasped.
Lightning lit up his sweaty ripped abdomen.
He pulled her lips back to his for another kiss that left them both panting even harder. “Where there is a will there is a way.”
“That was amazing,” she whispered.
His hands left her back and cupped her bottom tighter to his naked body. “What do you think they put in those snow cones?”
“I don’t know but they’d best not put it in teenagers’ snow cones or there’ll be a raft of new babies next year,” she answered.
Lightning split the sky again and hit an oak tree across the street from the school yard with enough force to shear a limb off like a machete slicing through soft butter.
She jumped and covered her eyes.
“Think we’d better put on our clothes and go home?” he asked.
“Not until we talk,” she answered.
“We could talk in our apartment, Laura.”
Our
apartment.
He’d said our, not my, not the, but our.
She wiggled free and reached for her bra hanging on the rearview mirror. When she had it and her underpants on, she climbed over into the front seat and finished dressing.
“Have to be dressed to talk, do you?” he asked. “We have sex naked. Why can’t we talk naked?”
“Lightning could strike twice in one place. It’s rare that it does but I’m not taking chances that big.”
“Why?”
“And I don’t want Maudie and Roxie to find us fried and naked.”
They’d barely gotten dressed when a police car rolled up beside the truck. An officer got out with a flashlight half the size of a ball bat and shined it inside.
“Colton Nelson, is that you?”
“Howdy, Randall. What are you doing out in this kind of weather?” Colton asked.
Did the man know everyone in the whole northern part of the state? He was on first name terms with the principal at Roxie’s school and he’d spoken to everyone at the ranch party like long lost friends.
“Old man Witherly called 911. Said a tree got zapped and he could see a truck in the school yard and the people in it had been killed with lightning. Thought I’d best come take a look.” Randall chuckled.
“Laura and I were out for a snow cone when the lightning started,” Colton said.
Rain started falling in huge drops that sent dust devils floating up around the truck. Randall grabbed his hat and nodded. “Y’all might ought to go home. Looks like we’re in for a toad strangler.”
“Hope so. We can use the rain,” Colton told him and hurriedly hit the button to roll up the windows. “Guess we’ll be talking at home.”
An hour later she was curled up beside him in bed. He toyed with her blond hair with one hand. The other had found a place to rest under her nightshirt between her breast and waist.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“About?”
“You know.”
She kissed his nipple. “Words, Colton.”
“I’m sorry that I said that about Roxie and her background. If that was the truth I’d be in big trouble too. I’d let my temper get away from me and wouldn’t be fit to be in a relationship. Is that enough words?” he asked.
“I’m sorry that I fired-up mad about it. I was so worried about Roxie and then there was the issue with Janet. Oh, she called me when she got home.”
She went on to tell him what all Janet had said and tears flowed down her cheeks just telling the story.
He wiped them away with his fingertips and kissed both eyelids.
“Not that I want to keep enabling her but it’s like the end of an era and I like being needed,” she said.
“I need you,” he whispered softly.
She propped up on an elbow. “Colton Nelson, you are a rich cowboy. You don’t need anything.”
He pulled her over on top of his body and wrapped his arms tightly around her. “Want and need are two different things. I can buy anything I want, but there are things I need that evidently are not up for sale and you are one of those things.”
He didn’t say he loved her, but then she’d heard those words before and they were meaningless without the actions to back them up. She settled her face in the crook of his neck and wondered if need wasn’t just as important as love when the dust settled.
***
Colton laced his fingers in Laura’s and opened the door to the banquet room at the Denison Country Club. Tables, covered with white cloths, were set with silver and napkins but no dinnerware. Evidently, the caterers intended to bring the food to the table because she didn’t see a buffet anywhere.
“Have I told you that you are beautiful tonight?” he asked.
“Three times since we left home and that was less than twenty minutes ago,” she answered.
He’d thought she was drop-dead gorgeous in Dallas, stunning at the ranch party, and downright beautiful in her sundress and boots at church that first Sunday. But that night she wore tight-fitting jeans and a shirt in shades of blue that matched her eyes. Her hair floated on her shoulders and he had the urge to weave it around his fingertips to feel the silky softness. Yes, sir, that night she was a rancher’s wife and more beautiful than she’d ever been before.
A tall dark cowboy with a drink in one hand clapped Colton on the shoulder and said, “Great party on Saturday. Man, I never knew an old barn could be transformed like that! I told my girls about it and they whined all day Sunday. Lily said that it wasn’t fair that you got a wife when she wants a mother. Gabby said that a mommy was all she wanted for her birthday at the end of summer.”
Colton shook hands with him. “Honey, you’ll remember Mason Harper. He’s the brave soul that danced with your sister.”
“Lovely girl,” Mason said. “I didn’t know she was your sister.”
“Don’t hog the fiancée. I haven’t gotten to meet her yet.” Another cowboy joined the group. “I was in Wyoming looking at cattle over the weekend. Just got home this morning. Didn’t think I was going to make it to the dinner here for a while. I’m Greg Adams. My ranch is over near Ravenna, not far from Ambrose.”
“Pleased to make your acquaintance,” Laura said.
“Before the night is over, you’ll have to meet my grandmother, Clarice. She’s my date tonight. Be thankful that Mason didn’t bring those two demon princesses of his to the party,” Greg said.
Mason grinned. “Don’t look at me, Miz Laura. Greg is being nice. What one of them can’t think of to get into trouble, the other one can, and believe me, there is strength in numbers. Right now it’s this thing of wanting a mommy for their birthday. Ain’t a woman alive who’d take on the job of mothering Lily and Gabby. Those two want a mommy, but there ain’t a mommy out there who’d want them.”
“Come on now.” Laura laughed.
“He’s tellin’ the truth,” Greg said. “I love ’em like nieces but those two could tear up a John Deere tractor with a feather.”
“And put it back together with the same feather.” Colton chuckled.
“Hey, I thought Lucas would be home by now,” Mason changed the subject.
Colton hugged Laura tighter to his side and said, “Greg, Mason, Lucas, and I all joined the Red River Angus Association at the same time. Lucas owns a spread over between Savoy and Ector. He’s in the National Guard and his unit got sent to Kuwait,” he explained.
“I thought it was supposed to be for only six months,” Greg said.
“His foreman Wyatt told Rusty last week at the feed store that they’d extended his time. He’ll be there until Christmas.”
“Man, that’s tough. I’d hate to be away from my ranch that long,” Mason said. “Y’all best hit the bar if you want a drink before dinner. They’ll be hollerin’ for us to find our places in about ten minutes.”
“It was good meeting y’all,” Laura said.
With a hand on the small of her back, Colton guided Laura to the bar. She ordered a longneck Coors and he nodded that he’d have the same.
“How many are in this club?” she asked.
“You mean the NTAA or the country club?”
“The first one. Are you a member of the country club?”
“Not me. Greg and Mason are, though, and several of the older ranchers keep a membership. I don’t play golf and I can’t see driving almost twenty miles to go swimming. There are about fifteen of us in the NTAA. Do you want a membership in the country club?”
“Hell, no!” she said without hesitation.
***
It was too good to be true.
They’d gotten through a blowup, had awesome makeup sex after a long talk, and things had seemed so right when she’d gone to sleep in his arms the night before. But there was a brick in her chest that evening as they left the Angus party and that always meant danger.
The moon hung above the treetops like a beaconing light guiding them home. Stars were diamonds twinkling brightly around it. The night air was warm but not scorching summer hot yet. Everything was perfect and yet nothing was right. Laura Baker did not belong in this world of country clubs and billionaire spa days.
Like Colton said so prophetically, blood cannot be changed.
“When my mother was as quiet as you are, a storm was on the way,” Colton said.
“I’m not your mother.”
“Do I detect a little anger in those words? We promised to be honest and not keep our feelings inside. What’s eating at you?”
“I don’t belong in your high-dollar world.”
“Neither do I, but it’s only a high-dollar world a few days a year. The rest of the time I get to be a rough old cowboy rancher.”
He parked in front of the house and turned to face her. “There’s the thing in Dallas and the NTAA dinner, the summer party, and the fall cattle sale. Christmas is just family, I promise.”
She counted on her fingers. “Four a year and three of them in the summer, right?”
“That’s right. Kind of like eating an elephant. You do it a bite at a time and it’s not so overwhelming. The Angus party is one evening, the ranch party a day and evening, and the Dallas affair a weekend. After that it’s over until fall, thank God!”
“And the sale?”
“Now that’s a big thing. We do have a dance and a dinner after the sale to thank everyone for coming, but believe me, we don’t drape the whole barn in that filmy stuff.” He laughed.
His laughter set everything back up straight in her world. Could she really, really stay at the ranch and enter into the real world? He had not said that he loved her. Would his need be enough to sustain her through the coming years and would it turn into love someday?
He tipped up her chin and kissed her passionately. “I still feel out of place among so many rich people. But, honey, with you by my side it sure makes it easier. I feel like I’ve got something none of them can ever have when I walk into those parties with you on my arm. As long as we are together, we’ll show all these rich cats how it’s done.”
As
long
as
we
are
together.
Janet said that when they were kids. Janet needed her and now she didn’t. What happened when Colton didn’t need her anymore?
Laura’s soul came close to leaving her body when Rusty knocked on the truck window right over Colton’s left shoulder.
She jumped straight up off the seat and banged her leg on the dash.
Colton whipped around when Rusty swung the door open. “What?”
“Sorry to interrupt but I’ve got a cow down and I need Laura,” Rusty said.
“Do I have time to change clothes?” Laura asked.
“No, ma’am. If we don’t get that calf out pretty soon, we’re going to lose her and the baby.”
“Hop in the back,” Colton said. “I’ll drive down to the barn.”
“She’s not in the barn. She’s out by the pond,” Rusty said as he crawled into the backseat.
Laura hoped he didn’t see the two purple dots on the seat that she’d left behind the night before when she and Colton had stormy sex back there. Colton had licked the snow cone juice from her fingers but two drops had gotten away from him before he could slurp them up.
***
Wednesday morning she and Colton both overslept and didn’t see Roxie before she went to school. Laura missed having breakfast with Roxie and made sure she was sitting on the porch that evening when the school bus pulled up in the yard.
Thursday morning, they awoke early and had wonderful
good
morning
darlin’
sex before they shared the shower. Laura had never shared a shower with a man before and loved the way their wet, soapy body parts kept bumping into each other.
Friday, Laura opened her eyes, checked the clock to see that she’d awakened thirty minutes early, and rolled over to snuggle up against Colton’s back but he wasn’t there. She rubbed the sleep out of her eyes and sat up, listening for the noise of the shower. She could hear Sally singing out in the hallway but there was no sound of water running.
She slung her legs over his side of the bed and saw the note lying on the nightstand. “Breakfast meeting of NTAA in Sherman. Rusty and I’ll be back around nine.” A heart and the letter
C
followed the words.
Did that mean “love, Colton”? She threw herself backwards on the bed. She loved the sex, loved his family, loved the ranch—hell, if she was honest she loved him—but until he said the words, she had made up her mind that she was not staying one day past her contracted month. They could tell the world whatever the hell they wanted when she was gone. They could make Colton look like the poor billion-dollar cowboy who’d been jilted, or they could say that he figured out she was running a scam on him. She didn’t give a damn what news they put out; she wasn’t staying without hearing the words spoken right out loud!
She stared at the ring on her finger. It didn’t feel so foreign anymore and it had to be a very good imitation because it still sparkled beautifully, especially when the sun rays hit it.
She wanted to replace it with a nice wide gold band. It didn’t have to be soon. She wasn’t pushing for a marriage, but she wanted the whole nine yards, not just a remnant at the end of the bolt. And after thinking about it all week, need wasn’t enough. She needed food to survive. She needed a roof of some kind to protect her from the elements. But it wasn’t the same as love and if Colton wasn’t willing to give her his whole heart then she’d go on down the road.