Trouble In Dixie (6 page)

"Now tell me why the hell you're crying,"
Karlie said flatly.

Damn. It looked like she wasn't going to get
by without spilling her guts. Her lip trembled again and her eyes
filled then she admitted, "Yellow roses."

"What?" Karlie asked in confusion.

"Tommy came by here and brought me yellow
roses, trying to apologize," she told her sister in a trembling
voice.

"Why the heck would that make you cry?"

"His apology sucked, and I can't just be his
friend. I've tried it for three months now, and it's not going to
work..." Katie told her and a few tears overflowed her eyes and she
cursed then yanked another Kleenex out of the box to wipe her face.
"I don't want to talk about it, seriously."

"Fine...we'll have a bottle of wine when you
get here and you can tell me all about it."

"When I get there?" Katie asked in
confusion.

"Yeah, I thought we'd practice some, it's
been a while, and you're probably rusty," Karlie told her with a
snort.

"Hah, the only rusty thing about me is..."
my hair
, she finished silently, but then realized she
couldn't say that anymore. "A certain body part," she improvised
quickly with a laugh.

"Well, we'll go out while you're here and
see if we can remedy that situation too...c'mon, sis, we need to
catch up," Karlie wheedled in that voice that drove Katie nuts.

Katie looked down at the box of tissues and
half empty bag of cookies, and snorted, "I guess so...I think I'm
shopped out, and cried out...and we could use the practice
probably. I'll go pick up Laramie and head that way."

Karlie whooped loudly, and Katie held the
phone away from her ear and laughed, then told her, "That whoop is
almost as bad as your snort...I'll be there in a few hours."

"See ya then," her sister said happily then
hung up the phone. Maybe she could feel out some job prospects,
while she was there too. Katie threw down her phone on the bed and
cleaned up the trailer, so everything was secure, then went to load
the bike in the truck and hook up the trailer again.

CHAPTER THREE

It was late afternoon when she pulled up in
front of the big farm house at the Double B, and she drove straight
back toward the barn, so she could park her trailer there and
unload Laramie. Karlie came running out of the barn and helped
guide her park the trailer under a tree, then ran up to the truck
door and swung it open. "Took you long enough!" she said with a
chortle.

Cassie Matthews came out of the barn and
walked over to them with a smile. When Katie got out of the truck
and stepped into the sun, both her sister and Cassie gasped and
their eyebrows hit their hairlines.

Karlie's hand flew to her lips and she asked
breathlessly, "Holy, shit, Kate...what the hell have you done to
yourself?"

Katie fluffed her hair and stepped aside so
she could shut the door, and then stood facing her now un-identical
twin sister. "Definitely not boring anymore, huh?" she said
self-consciously.

"Holy, crap!" her sister said then fingered
her new straight blond hair, as her eyes moved down over her halter
top, to her shorts, then she gasped in horror, "
Fuck
, you
got a tattoo?"

Katie shrugged then stepped forward and
hugged her stiffly. "It was time for us to become individuals, so
this is my attempt."

"You went waaay overboard, Katie," Karlie
told her angrily and took a step back to look at her again. "Those
clothes...Jesus, you're gonna give somebody a heart attack!"

"I'm channeling my inner biker chick,
sis...the look goes with my new bike," she said with a wry
grin.

"
I'm
the wild child, sis...this is so
not
you," Karlie told her quietly.

"Well, I'm tired of being boring...and in
your shadow. I'm figuring out who I am, and it's a process," Katie
replied defensively. "Let's drop the subject, okay? I need to
unload Laramie, and get my bike unloaded."

Karlie walked to the bed of the truck and
looked at the bike. "That's a good way to get yourself killed,
Katie," she said then shook her head. "You don't have to do all
this," Karlie told her then stepped away from the truck and asked,
"What the hell brought all this on?"

Katie ignored her and walked to the back of
the trailer and slid the latch, then opened it wide, before she put
down the ramp. Crawling inside, she moved up front in the second
bay and unclipped the lead rope. Moving around the post she got in
front of Laramie and scratched his nose, then leaned into his
shoulder to get him moving backward, talking softly to him. After
she had him out she handed the rope to her sister and then closed
the trailer doors.

"You didn't answer me Katie--what the hell
started all this?" Karlie demanded with a hand on her hip.

"Ask Tommy Tucker, sis...I'm not going
there, but I'm not going back either. This is the new me, accept
it...or not." Katie told her firmly, then snatched the rope from
her to lead Laramie toward the barn. "Where should I stall him?"
she asked with a frustrated sigh.

Maybe she shouldn't have come to here, Katie
thought, if her sister was going to grill her, and make her feel
like shit. This is so not what she needed right now, that was for
sure. Her new found confidence had been thoroughly squashed, thanks
to her sister.

Karlie walked around her stiffly and opened
a stall door halfway down the aisle, then stood back.

Katie led Laramie into the stall then asked,
"Where's the feed and hay?"

"I'll get some," Karlie said angrily, then
walked off to a door down the way and went inside. She came back
out with a bucket of feed and a flake of hay, then stomped into the
stall and dumped it in the feed bin, and walked out again, then
came back with a hose and filled up the water bucket, without
saying another word. When she was done, Karlie coiled the hose back
up, then walked out of the barn toward the house.

"Just give her a little bit to get herself
together, Katie," Cassie said sympathetically, walking up to the
stall door, then added with a huge grin, "I think you look
fantastic," and her eyes traveled down Katie's legs. "I need me
some of those boots...those are hot. Luke would like 'em."

Katie felt her cheeks flush and she smiled.
"Thanks...I thought they were pretty too," she said then looked
down at the stiletto leather boots with the metal studs.

"Karlie does too, she's just in shock,
she'll get used to it," she said with a hoot.

Wade Roberts picked that minute to walk his
horse in the back of the barn and down the aisle. When he glanced
up, he stopped short and put a hand to his chest, and his mouth
flapped a few times, then his face got red and he said, "Lord have
mercy, you trying to give me a heart attack? Jesus, Karlie, what
the hell did you do to yourself?"

"Katie," she said simply.

Wade took a step back and his face got even
redder as he tipped his hat back and whistled. "That's even
worse...wow," he said shaking his head.

Blood rushed up Katie's neck and she folded
her arms across her chest. "You got something to say?"

"You look..." he looked around the barn then
said hesitantly in a gruff whisper, "Unbelievably
hot
. Don't
tell Jess I said that or she'll have my hide." With a chuckle, he
asked, "What's with the change?"

"Tired of being part of a matched set, and
someone told me recently I was boring, so I decided I needed a
change."

"
You
? Boring? What fucking moron said
that?" he snorted, and his lips twisted as he said, "Must not know
you very well."

"Obviously not...but it was time for a
change anyway," she told him then walked over and gave him a brief
hug. "How've you been?"

"I've been better, and I've been worse...one
day at a time, you know?" he said and shook his dark head. "You've
gotta meet Angel," he told her and grinned proudly.

"I hear she's beautiful," she told him with
a wide grin, then added, "And she has her daddy wrapped around her
little pinkie."

"Right on both counts...she's amazing,"
Katie saw him look up and over her shoulder, then he added, "Her
mama is too," and he waked around her, then down the aisle to where
she saw Jess Sparks standing on the doorstep with Angel in her
arms.

She turned to go back inside, but he stopped
her, and gave them both a hug, then leaned down and kissed Jess,
before he dropped a kiss on Angel's dark hair. "I'll see you later,
Kate..." he said over his shoulder then gave her a quick wink and
went inside the bunkhouse with them.

"Wow..." she said and shook her head at the
change in him.

She heard Cassie chuckle, then she said,
"Yeah, that's everyone's reaction. He's pretty much bowled over by
both of them, and it's good to see."

Katie dropped her chin to her chest and
sighed. "Yeah, it is...looks like everyone is getting paired off
except me, huh?" she said with a forced laugh.

"Hang in there, kiddo, it'll happen...you
just can't force it...or settle," Cassie told her with concern in
her voice.

"That's why I left the Rockin' D," she told
Cassie quietly, then hesitated a moment to add, "Tommy doesn't have
room in his life for another female...he's still hung up on his
late wife, and Dixie takes up the rest of the space. That little
girl is hell on wheels, and spoiled rotten." Katie looked up when
she heard a little gasp then a squeak and she saw a flash of blond
hair and hot pink run out of the barn door.

Cassie sucked in a breath then said, "Oh,
shit--I forgot Dixie was here..." then took off running after her,
with Katie hobbling right behind her in the high heeled boots.

Cassie had her in a bear hug, sitting in the
field by the time Katie got there. Dixie was crying and trying to
get out of her hold, but Cassie wasn't letting her get away.
"Settle down, sugar...she didn't mean anything by it."

"Yes, she did...she hates me!" Dixie wailed
and kept fighting.

Cassie kissed the top of her head, and held
her tighter, whispering soft things near her ear. Katie walked up
then wobbled as she tried to sit down beside them. Maybe these
boots weren't such a good idea after all, she thought, as she
finally got settled.

"I don't hate you, Dixie...far from it,
darlin'," Katie told her softly.

Dixie sniffled against Cassie then cast
belligerent blue eyes her way and asked, "Then why are you so mean
to me?"

"How am I mean to you?" she asked wanting
the little girl to list her offenses, so she knew why Dixie thought
that.

"You punished me from riding in my golf
cart," the little girl said and stuck out her bottom lip.

"Okay, you know why I did that?" Katie asked
her in a frustrated tone and watched Dixie shake her blond curls
then snuggle closer to Cassie. "I did that because I didn't want
the mama of that calf you were chasing to hurt you...didn't you see
her running behind the golf cart?"

"No..." Dixie admitted then sniffled
again.

"She was chasing the golf cart and could
have butted it and pushed it over. You could have gotten hurt. I
did that because I care about you, not to be mean...and I punished
you from riding the cart for the rest of the day, so you'd remember
not to do that again."

"You wouldn't show me how to rope," she
pouted.

"I showed you how roping is done with my
demonstration,
and
I gave you riding lessons. I told you I'd
show you more, once you got a little more stable riding your
pony...I'm sure with a few more lessons, we'd have been there.
Again, I didn't want you to get hurt, because I care about you...I
didn't do it to be mean. If you got on that pony with a rope trying
to throw it over a calf, you could have fallen and gotten stomped
either by the pony or the calf."

"You wouldn't let me help with training the
cutting horses," Dixie accused with a trembling lip.

"Nope, I sure wouldn't, because I had to
work three that day, and I didn't have time to work with you too.
The schedule that day was really packed, and I was cutting the
prospects back to two, and had to focus. I didn't do it to be mean,
darlin', I was just doing the job your daddy pays me to do. I'm
sorry if you thought I was being mean."

Dixie sat up straighter in Cassie's arms,
and she loosened them a little bit. "But you were mean to my daddy
too..." she tossed and threw up her stubborn little chin.

"I was angry at him, and at you, because you
didn't tell him the whole truth did you?" Katie said sternly and
pinned her with an intense look.

Dixie dropped her eyes to her hands and
twisted them in her lap, then admitted, "No ma'am...I was mad
too."

"It's okay to be mad, sugar, but it's
not
okay to lie, ever. You understand?" After she nodded,
Katie continued, "If you lie, people will never know when to
believe you, or when you're telling the truth, got that?"