One Hot Cowboy Wedding (25 page)

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Monday went fairly smoothly, but Jasmine was antsy all day. Something wasn’t right and yet she couldn’t pinpoint a single thing that was wrong. Bridget wasn’t fighting with Frankie. Pearl hadn’t called in hysterics because something was burning down. Liz and Raylen stopped by for lunch and everything was fine there.

After work, she went straight to the ranch rather than making the desserts for the next day and grew more agitated with every mile. By the time she parked her truck, she was sure the whole world would come crash-ing down on her shoulders.

Old Bill and Little Joe were asleep on the porch and didn’t even wake up to wag their tails at her. She made sure they were both breathing and went on into the house. She poked her head into the living room to find Dalton and Blake watching television. Chips and a container of salsa were on the coffee table, but there were no empty cans of Vienna sausage in sight. Lucy must’ve made believers out of them.

“Where’s Lucy?” she said.

“Gone to the store over in Terral for cinnamon. She forgot to get it over the weekend in Bowie. Guess she’s makin’ cinnamon rolls for supper,” Dalton said.

“What are you two doing in the house?” she asked.

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back in the office. We finished a couple of hours early so we quit for the day,” Blake said.

The door to Ace’s office stood ajar so she peeked inside. “Got time for a walk?”

“I’m two weeks behind on computer entries. See you later,” he said without taking his eyes from the screen.

“Then I’m going back to the café. It might be late when I get back. I probably won’t be back in time for supper. I’ll just grab a plate of leftovers at the cafe.” He raised a hand and kept working.

She’d lived in the apartment above the Chicken Fried for a year and a half. She’d come in and out of the empty café dozens of times, but that night the silence was eerie. She turned on the kitchen light and took down the recipe for black forest cake, lined up the ingredients, and greased six round pans. Working with her hands left her thoughts free to go wherever they wanted and they kept drifting back to Ace brushing her off. She knew him well enough to know when he was brooding about something. And he always, always found time for her.

She mixed, whipped, beat, and poured the cake dough into the pans. She set a timer, checked her watch to be double sure, and climbed the stairs to her apartment.

Everything was the same as it was before she married Ace, but the place seemed empty, as if it had given up on her ever coming back. Picking up the remote, she turned on the television, thinking maybe noise would help.

It didn’t.

Ace had come and gone in her life and friendship for eighteen months. There had been days when she didn’t even see him and didn’t even think about it. Then he’d pop back in with a story about some woman who’d OneHotCowboyWedding.indd 217

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thought she could tear down his barbed wire; he’d point at his tat and Jasmine would tell him that no woman would even want his scraggly old cowboy heart. And she’d make him a hamburger and they’d laugh.

“He was too serious to even look at me, so something is way the hell wrong and it has to do with me,” she said.

And then the light bulb went off and the anger set in.

They’d had sex and he was afraid that she would consider that a declaration of love or expect a permanent relationship. Her eyes narrowed and she stomped back down the stairs into the kitchen. Fifteen minutes left until the cakes were done. She’d planned to make the icing and frost them that night, but they were going to wait until morning. She paced the floor and checked the clock every thirty seconds. Finally, the timer dinged and she jerked the cakes from the oven.

Q

Ace was sit ing on the porch with his feet propped on the railing when she drove into the yard, braking hard and slinging gravel halfway to Bowie. She stomped up on the porch and left no doubt that she was madder’n the devil in a snowstorm. He knew he was in trouble when she stopped right in front of him, propped her hands on her hips, and drew her green eyes into nothing more than slits. Well, she could bring it on because he had a few things to say to her too!

“We need to talk,” she said.

“Yep, we do.”

“We might need to take a walk because I might get loud,” she said.

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“How about we ride down to Bowie and get some ice cream? You look like you could use a coolin’ off.”

“It’ll take more than ice cream to cool me off. I’ve been thinkin’ and it’s not pretty,” she said.

“Well, so have I, and it ain’t pretty neither.” He stood up slowly and brushed past her on the way to his truck.

Without even a gesture of cowboy manners, he got inside and waited on her to open her own door.

He’d turned onto the highway heading south toward Bowie when she exploded. “You jackass! We had sex and now you are ready to throw me in the trash like you’ve done with all the others.”

His jawbones worked knots into his face. “You think that about me? You think I’d do that to you?” Her voice raised two octaves. “Not that you would, Ace Riley. You did! What was I? A big conquest. Rinky dink me into proposing to you…”

He pulled into an abandoned car lot on the west side of the road, stomped the brakes hard enough that he left skid marks and the smell of hot rubber, turned off the engine, and turned to face her.

“That is one damn crazy way of thinkin’, Jazzy. My conscience is clear. I did not rinky do you into jack shit.

We had amazing sex, but I’m not ready to put you a trash can! God Almighty!”

“You sound like my mother!”

He raised his voice to match hers. “And that’s the damn problem I have.”

“What? That you sound like my mother?”

“Hell, no! That you are the strongest woman I know, but you won’t let go of your mommy issues. You don’t want to have this big farce of a wedding. I can see it in OneHotCowboyWedding.indd 219

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your face and hear it in your tone, but you won’t tell her to shove it up her ass. You say she always gets her way.

Well, darlin’, that’s because you let her. If you don’t want to have a wedding then tell her no. As long as you let her control you, then you won’t ever…”

“Ever what?” she whispered.

“Ever really be your own person.” He reached across the seat and cupped her face in his two big rough hands. “If you want this big thing, then that’s fine. I’ll do it for you because you’ve done so much for me and I care about you, Jazzy. But if you don’t, then have the balls to say no, and I’ll back you up with my momma too. You decide. It’s been playin’ on my mind all afternoon. Everyone is acting like we aren’t even married and we are, and neither one of us even wanted things to go this far much less mushroom into all this full- fledged wedding shit.”

“A- damn- men!” she muttered.

He kissed her softly, then harder, and then with so much heat that she almost whined.

“We could compromise. A barbecue at the ranch on the day your momma wanted to have a wedding. Dexter could smoke ribs and Tyson can grill steaks. You and Lucy can come up with the rest. Or we’ll call a caterer to do the whole shebang,” he said.

“No caterers. That’s too much fanfare. Kelly King could make even that into a million decisions. Lucy and I can make desserts and the rest of it.”

“So?” He shifted back to his side of the truck.

She leaned forward and pulled her phone from her hip pocket and hit the speed dial for her mother.

“Speak fast. Marcella and I are finishing the last OneHotCowboyWedding.indd 220

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touches on the invitations and getting all the information down for the dresses,” Kelly said breathlessly.

“Hold the presses,” she said.

“No! No changes this late in the game.”

“Big changes. No wedding.”

Ace reached across and closed his hand around hers.

“That is bullshit, Jasmine Marie! You are already married so you can’t back out of an engagement like you did with Eddie Jay.”

Jasmine took a deep breath. “And that’s why I’m not doing it again. We are married. It does not have the Texas stamp on the paper, but it’s legal and this is ridiculous, Momma. There is not going to be a wedding and I’m dead serious. If you order that dress, you’d better get it in your size because you will be the one who’s wearing it.”

“But…” Kelly stammered.

“We are having a party. A big Texas- style barbecue out on our ranch, the Double Deuce. You can use the list to send out invitations for that. Same day as you planned the wedding. From noon until the food and beer is all gone or until everyone goes home. Put a note at the bottom of the invitation that says, ‘No gifts. The presence of your company is the best gift you can give Jasmine and Ace.’ Or something like that.”

“You can’t do this to me,” Kelly said.

“I have done it. I mean it, Momma. No wedding.

No church shit. No presents. Everyone can come to the ranch and have a big time. Ace will send you the ranch logo, which is his brand, if you want to put it on the invitations. I don’t care what they look like. They can be regular old post office postcards run out on Daddy’s computer printer for all I care.”

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“God Almighty!” Kelly King said.

“I mean it, Momma.” Jasmine felt like a weight had been lifted from her shoulders.

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph! You can’t do this, Jasmine Marie!”

“We can and we did,” Jasmine said.

“I hope you have five daughters who all disappoint the hell out of you,” Kelly yelled.

Ace heard that and grinned.

“I hope if I do that they all elope to Las Vegas, and I was actually thinking seven daughters and then maybe one son.”

Kelly hung up on her.

She looked at Ace and started to giggle.

“How’d that make you feel?” he asked.

“I sure feel sorry for Daddy tonight because she’s going to be in a royal blue- blooded snit. And I actually feel sorry for her. It can’t be easy to lose control like that.”

“But how do
you
feel?”

She squeezed his hand. “Like King Kong on steroids!”

“Why?”

She looked into his eyes. “Because I don’t have to worry with al that wedding shit. Now it’s your turn.

Call Dolly. I’ll tell Pearl tomorrow and she can put the word out to the rest of the bridesmaids. I’m glad I didn’t ever say anything to Nellie and Ellen, but I do want them invited to the party.”

Without a moment’s hesitation, he dug his phone from his shirt pocket and hit the right button.

“Hello, son,” Dolly said.

“We’re callin’ off the wedding.”

“Is Jasmine leaving you?”

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Jasmine heard that and held up her wedding ring.

“No, ma’am. But it’s got way out of hand and it’s crazy. We are married and the license is valid and we don’t want to do it. We’ve decided to do a big party at the ranch on that day so both families and all our friends can meet each other. From noon until the food is gone or the visitin’ is finished.”

Long silence.

Jasmine playfully smacked him on the arm.

“Did Jasmine talk to her mother?” Dolly finally asked.

“She did.”

“And?”

“She wasn’t happy but we’ve made up our minds and we’re not changing them. We’re not having a wedding but we are having a party and Jasmine says no presents, either. Kelly is sending invitations from the list and it will be on there about the presents.”

“Then we won’t have to do the rehearsal dinner?” Ace could hear what was coming next so he stopped her. “Dexter and Tyson are doing the barbecue and steaks. Lucy and Jasmine will do the desserts. It’s not going to be a catered thing.”

“Put me down for enough potato salad, cole slaw, and baked beans to feed an army. I’ll get the other girls to help with it and send Dalton and Blake home that weekend. You’ll need the house for her family,” Dolly said.

“Thank you.”

Jasmine raised an eyebrow.

“Done. She’s bringing potato salad, cole slaw, and baked beans.”

“You got off easier than I did.”

“Remember that when you have five daughters and OneHotCowboyWedding.indd 223

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want to plan a wedding for them. Maybe you’d rather trade them in on five sons before you even get started.” He chuckled.

“Las Vegas has this beautiful little wedding chapel I will book and all it takes is a phone call to book a flight there,” she teased.

“Ready for ice cream?”

She nodded.

Q

All was right in the world. Jasmine was sorry that she’d disappointed her mother, but Kelly would get over the disappointment. Ace wasn’t mad at her because of the sex and he was whistling. Jasmine was hungry for the first time in days.

When they rolled up to the Dairy Queen window, she ordered a double dip of homemade vanilla on a waffle cone.

Ace ordered a double dip of chocolate on a waffle cone.

The lady handed the ice creams out the drive- through window, and Ace drove through Bowie to a motel on the east side that reminded Jasmine of the Longhorn back before it burned down. The Wildcat Motel did not have a doofus old neon cowboy on the sign, but, like the Longhorn, it was set up in a U- shape popular back in the fifties.

“What are you doing?” she asked when he stopped in front of the lobby instead of turning around in the parking lot like she expected him to do.

“I’ve missed you. I liked coming into the café after hours and having you all to myself for an hour while I ate a burger. But lately everything has been about that OneHotCowboyWedding.indd 224