Just a Cowboy and His Baby (Spikes & Spurs) (7 page)

Trace looked up from the grill and said, “Aha, we’re eating out here with the flies and mosquitoes, are we? I told you we could eat in my place since you don’t have a table.”

She stretched the tablecloth over the wooden table and secured it with half a dozen thumbtacks. “You are supposed to swat flies and cuss mosquitoes on July Fourth. They belong to the atmosphere.”

“Reckon one of them will tell me what it was that you wished for when you sat on Santa’s knee last Christmas? I betcha that’s why that fly keeps buzzing around my ears,” he said.

“I’ll bring a flyswat out next and you better hope he doesn’t land on your ear, cowboy.”

“Bring two. Maybe he’ll land on your cute little fanny,” Trace teased.

“That’s a lame pickup line.”

“It’s not a line. It’s a prayer,” he said.

“I’m not into kinky stuff,” she said and blushed again. They didn’t sound nearly so ridiculous in her head as they did when they hit his ears.

“Oh? What are you into?”

“What are you into?” She turned the question back on him.

“You show me yours and I’ll show you mine.”

She started back into the trailer. “It’s not show-and-tell day at the trailer park.”

“So how do you like your steak?” he raised his voice when she shut the door.

She poked her head back out of the trailer and said, “Wipe the slobbers off his nose, slap his sorry ass on the grill for five minutes, and bring him to me.”

“Rare it is, and you got that line from Pepper in
Cowboy
Way
.” Trace laughed. “I brought that movie with me. Want to watch it in my trailer after fireworks?”

“Sounds good to me,” she agreed.

If her attention was on a movie, she wouldn’t think about how much she’d like to kiss him again. Would his lips on hers always conjure up visions of tangled sheets and sweaty bodies, or were those first couple of times plain old beginner’s luck?

She remembered Pepper in
Cowboy
Way
with his cowboy hat hanging just below his belly button. Suddenly, Trace Coleman was the cowboy and the hat was the one with the gold hat pin on the brim.

Dammit! Dammit! I need to cool down, not think naughty things that heat me up even more.

She grabbed the wet washcloth, added an ice cube to one corner, and went to work on her face again. It didn’t do a hell of a lot to cool her down because she kept stealing glances out the kitchen window at him turning the steaks and talking to Sugar. She tried lip reading, but she couldn’t understand a word of what he was saying so she imagined kissing those lips rather than listening to them talk.

She tossed the washcloth into the sink again and gave herself a stern lecture. She opened a drawer and took out a long butcher knife, cut the watermelon in half, and started cutting chunks from the heart into bite-sized pieces.

What
would
it
be
like
to
stretch
him
out
on
satin
sheets
and
pile
little
bits
of
watermelon
on
his
sexy
body? He could handcuff my hands behind my back with those pink furry cuffs I saw at Christie’s, and that way I could only use my lips and tongue to get at the watermelon. Dear God, I’ve got to stop this before it causes me to combust right here in the trailer.

The lecture worked until she started peeling fresh peaches.

These
would
look
pretty
damn
good
lined
up
from
his
belly
button
down, and I could pick them up with my teeth and put them in his mouth.

Fruit was not supposed to turn a woman on, and cutting it up was not supposed to produce pictures so hot they’d melt the devil’s cute little forked tail. She cut up cantaloupe and shook her head every time another vision started.

“Hey, can you get this please?” she yelled from the doorway.

He jumped like he’d been shot and turned so quick that he was a blur. “You startled me.”

“I can see that. What were you thinking about?”

He smiled. “That, darlin’, is my business. Steaks will be done in about three minutes. Vegetables are tender. Are we eating caveman style?”

“No, I’ve got plates, forks, and even real knives, although if you did it right, the steaks will be tender enough to cut with a fork. Put this on the table for dessert and I’ll bring them out,” she said.

She’d give up her next shamrock to know what he was thinking.

Hell, no! I would not!

She argued with herself as she gathered up sturdy red plastic disposable plates, plastic forks, two real steak knives, along with a couple of paper napkins, a loaf of sliced Italian bread, and a tub of butter. Her hands were full, but she managed to make it from trailer to table without dropping anything, or drooling when he looked around at her with those damn sexy brown eyes.

Using tongs, he placed a foil package and a sirloin on her plate and turned back to the grill. “Drinks?” he asked.

“Beer or sweet tea?” she asked.

“Beer,” he said.

She went back inside the trailer, got two longneck bottles from the tiny refrigerator, and yelled from the door before she took them out, “Coors?”

“Best there is if it’s good and cold.”

She handed him a bottle across the table and their hands barely brushed, but after the thoughts she’d been having, it was the same as red-hot coals landing in her palms.

“You’d better eat your food before you drink.”

“Why?”

“If last night was any indication of your drinking ability, you’ll pass out and I’d hate to waste your steak. Sugar might eat some of it, but those are big bruisers. I don’t think I could eat two, and Uncle Teamer would shoot me if I wasted a single bite of a good beef steak.”

She cut off a piece of steak, put it in her mouth, and chewed. It was absolutely perfect: rare, hot through the middle, and seasoned just right. When she swallowed she pointed her knife at him. “You got this steak done perfect, but darlin’, I can outdrink any cowboy, including you, on the face of the earth. You want a match, just call the time and place.”

“You are smiling. What’s so funny?”

“I’m Irish and we can hold our liquor, and besides, my boobs are big.” Gemma giggled.

“What’s that got to do with anything?”

“Well, according to Irish legend, it has to do with the boobs. Liquor all goes there before it hits the brain. I’ve got enough to handle a lot when you add it to my Irish heritage.”

Trace’s chuckle turned into a guffaw. “Cute story, but don’t ever think for a minute that you can outdrink or outride me, Gemma O’Donnell.”

“I don’t think anything. I know I can do both,” she said.

A whole string of popping firecrackers sounded in the distance.

Gemma jumped and dropped a piece of steak on the ground.

Sugar hugged up to Trace’s leg under the table and whimpered.

Trace chuckled again.

“What’s so funny?”

“You could outdrink and outride me, but a firecracker spooks you. I think that’s funny,” he said.

“Laugh now. Cry later,” she smarted off and changed the subject. “Guess some folks are gettin’ an early start on the evening show.”

“When I was a kid, my father let me start popping firecrackers before dark. Probably so I’d shut up begging him about when we could put off the fireworks he had bought for the evening. How about you and your brothers?”

“Oh, yeah! We’d do firecrackers all afternoon and then ride over to Terral to watch the fireworks. They rope off the street in front of the school and it’s a big show. Ringgold is too small to have its own display.”

“Houston has a show that goes on for hours. But I always liked the one we had in the backyard just as well. You mentioned watermelon wine?” he said.

“It is chilling to have with dessert. It’s too sweet to eat with a good steak,” she said.

Another round of firecrackers went off and Sugar yelped.

Trace unfastened the leash and carried the tiny dog into his trailer.

“Poor baby,” Gemma said when he returned.

“She’ll be all right. She was already snuggled down in the pillows. This is a very good steak. Mostly I don’t like marinades. I like the flavor of a good steak just like it is, but this isn’t overpowering. Want to share your secret?”

She shook her head. “Old family secret, darlin’, and I could tell you, but then… well, you know what those Navy SEALs say.”

“Would I get to pick the way I die?”

She looked across the table to find him staring right into her eyes. “Maybe. What have you got in mind?”

His voice had dropped an octave and caressed her skin as surely as if he’d been touching her with his big rough hands. “It has to do with a whole night in my bed, lots of watermelon wine, and long slow kisses.”

“Are you trying to seduce me with words?” she asked.

“I don’t know. Is it working?”

Call
his
bluff! Don’t let him get into your head and get ahead of you!

“And what if I said that sounded like a fine idea?” she asked.

“Then I’d go get the wine and carry you inside the trailer to my bed,” he said.

“Sounds nice, but poor little Sugar has been traumatized enough. We can’t throw her out of her pillows. It wouldn’t be right,” she teased.

Gemma had had relationships in her twenty-eight years. But the past couple of years nothing had crossed her path that even looked interesting. After that last fiasco she was gun-shy and didn’t trust her own judgment when it came to men, but it didn’t stop her from wanting a family—not one bit.

Trace gave her another one of his killer smiles. It was almost as heady as the kiss.

“I’ll get the wine,” she blurted out and escaped again into her tiny trailer where she cooled her face one more time with the wet cloth.

“At this rate I’ll wash all my skin off before the night is over!” she whispered.

She stacked everything she needed and picked up the bottle with Austin’s label on the front. He reached for the wine and glasses. With very little effort he uncorked the bottle and poured while she set out fruit and bowls. He filled a bowl with fruit, tasted it first, and then sipped the wine.

She shut her eyes tightly. She’d look at the sky, her food, hell, even the ants making a beeline for the edge of the trash can before she let her eyes wander to his lips again.

Trace nodded in appreciation. “Very good together. I usually don’t like wine or mixed drinks. I’m a cold beer man most of the time, but occasionally I like a double shot of Jack Daniel’s with one cube of ice. What about you?”

“The same. Cold beer on a hot night. Jack Daniel’s, neat though, on special occasions. But I do like Austin’s watermelon wine, and when we girls get together things can get pretty funny after we polish off a few bottles of it,” she said.

“Your smile says that there are stories to be heard. Talk, lady,” Trace said.

“Darlin’, husbands or wild horses couldn’t drag it out of us about what happens on girls’ night out.”

“Like coon huntin’,” he said.

“What?”

“Coon huntin’. When us menfolk go coon huntin’ we don’t tell anyone what we talk about either,” Trace said.

Gemma frowned. Just what did all the menfolk in her family and their friends talk about when they went coon hunting? Damn that Trace anyway for the hundredth time that day. Raising a question like that. She’d never thought about what the guys talked about.

“Gotcha!” He laughed.

“You are a snake in the grass,” she said.

“It’s not against the rules.”

“I’ll get even,” she declared.

“I look forward to it. It’s at least two hours before dark. Let’s take our wine inside and watch a movie before they start. We can be cool until it’s time to come back out and see all the pretty colors.” He picked up the bottle of wine and led the way to his trailer.

She followed and hoped the air-conditioning in his trailer would cool her thoughts as well as her skin. She stepped inside and stopped in the kitchen area. Where was the television, anyway?

Trace was halfway to the bed when he turned to see where she was.

“It’s in here,” he said.

But her feet wouldn’t move. Sitting on the bed with Trace after all the sexy thoughts she’d entertained all day and evening was begging for danger.

His gaze started at her toes and moved up her legs to the hem of her cutoff jean shorts and farther, taking a moment at chest level to get even softer, and then to her lips. Hot liquid want was in his eyes when they locked with hers, something that would not be denied. Or if it was the same degree of heat she felt, maybe it could not be denied.

He set the wine on the cabinet, took a step toward her, and she took one toward him. He picked up her hands and held them.

“You are a very beautiful woman, Gemma,” he whispered seductively.

His thumbs grazed the tender part of her palms. His eyes searched hers as if asking permission to kiss her. Pure fire radiated between them. And his lips came closer and closer.

She couldn’t look at anything else. She couldn’t think about anything else but his mouth and the way his lips parted ever so gently. The kiss was both sweet and spicy hot, sending delicious ripples of pent-up desire shooting through her veins like scalding hot lava.

She wiggled her hands free, snaked them around his neck, and tangled her fingers in his hair. He backed up and sat down on the bed and drew her onto his lap. She thought with every kiss that she’d explode. She tried to slow the process down by thinking about riding broncs, but a picture of him in his chaps came to mind and sparks danced around the bedroom like lightning streaks. If he could control the bedroom scene like he did a bronc, they were in for a long, long evening of amazing sex.