Chapter Two #2
Paul stuck out his hand. “We can get the personal effects out of the house and be gone in a couple of days.”
Miles shook with him and stood up. “Thanks for the cobbler and sweet tea.”
We can tell the neighbor that we won’t need her help anymore starting a week from today,” Eva said with a smile.
“That sounds great, and thank you,” Miles said. “I’ve got to be somewhere in a couple of hours, so I’ll be going.”
“Thanks again,” Paul said. “This sure makes everything easier for us.”
“Me, too,” Miles said.
“So, how did it go last night?” Darlene asked the second that Holly answered the phone.
“Holly was bored out of her mind, but Lula Ann has a date this evening. We are going for burgers and then watching a movie in the park,” she answered.
“You’ve got to be kidding me.” Darlene gasped. “The Holly McLean, who will inherit an oil corporation, is going on a cheap date?”
“It’s not like I’ve never been on a date before,” Holly protested.
“Not in a long time, but darlin’, I’m glad to hear that you are interested in someone enough to say yes. You need to slow down and live a little outside of the office and possible oil field sites.”
“The Holly McLean you know doesn’t live in your grandparents’ house right now.
It’s Lula Ann who will be going out with this tall, dark, sexy-as-hell guy named Bubba Jones.
He looks like he belongs on the front of a romance book.
Dark hair, worn a little too long. Emerald-green eyes.
Over six feet tall, and he wears cowboy boots and jeans. ”
“And you are interested?” Darlene asked. “That’s a far cry from …” She sneezed a couple of times.
“From my dates to five-star restaurants and art galleries?” Holly finished for her. “I’m excited …” She paused when she heard the crunch of tires on gravel as a vehicle drove up in the driveway. “There he is now, right on time.”
“Call me tonight and tell me how bored you were.” Darlene laughed, and that brought on another coughing fit.
“Or not.” Holly giggled. “Get well. You are missing a good time.”
“Where is my best friend, Holly? What have you done with her?” Darlene asked.
“Lula Ann kicked her to the curb. He’s knocking on the door. Gotta go.”
“Yes, yes, go on and enjoy your burger and the movie.” Darlene ended the call.
Holly quickly checked her reflection in the mirror on the way to the living room.
She hadn’t had time to change into jeans, so hopefully the sundress wasn’t too fancy for the date Bubba had planned.
She had piled her red hair up on top of her head in a messy bun and wore the same cowboy boots that she had the night before.
She opened the door and stood to one side.
Her breath caught in her chest at the sight of him standing there with his hat in his hands.
Lord have mercy! The man was even sexier than he had been the night before.
The sparkle in his eyes made her blush. It took a great deal of her willpower not to fan her face with the back of her hand.
“Come on in. The quilt is folded up and in a tote bag ready to go.”
Bubba held out a bouquet of wildflowers tied with a piece of baling twine. “I picked these for you.”
“They are lovely. Give me a minute to put them in water.” She fanned herself with the back of her hand on the way to the kitchen, but it didn’t help the vibes that flowed from Bubba to her when he smiled.
She found a jar in the cabinet that still had the paper wrapper on it, testifying that at one time it had held strawberry jam.
She filled it with water and settled the flowers down in it.
She thought she had the heat under control, but when she looked up from the flowers, he was on the other side of the counter with that sexy smile.
“Where did you find these?” Her voice sounded strange in her own ears.
“I picked them while I was checking boundary fences,” he answered. “You sure do look pretty. The blue in your dress matches your eyes.”
“Thank you. I bet you tell all your dates that,” Holly teased.
“No, ma’am, just the ones with red hair and blue eyes.”
“I’m not going to ask how many of those there’ve been because that would be way too personal for a first date,” she said.
He raised his dark eyebrows. “Does that mean there will be a second one?”
“We’ll have to see how the first one goes, won’t we?” She finished arranging the wildflowers and took a step back to admire them. “They are beautiful, Bubba. Thank you so much for picking them for me.”
“Red for your hair. Blue for your eyes. Yellow for the sunshine in your smile, and that is not a pickup line.” He chuckled.
“Well, it’s romantic enough to be one. I will grab the quilt, and I’ve got bug spray in my purse. Anything else we need?”
“Nothing, but we should be going. I made reservations for seven.”
Holly jerked her head up. “Reservations for burgers?”
“I’m joking,” Bubba said. “We’re going to downtown Houston, to this little place that I’ve heard makes the best ones in the whole state, and their beer is so cold it will give you a brain freeze worse than homemade ice cream.”
Holly would have preferred a glass of chilled wine, but she guessed that Lula Ann might like a cold beer even more, so she nodded.
“So, this is where you live?” Bubba asked on the way to the living room. “This is a cozy little place. Kind of rustic with all the oak paneling.”
“Yep, but like I said, I haven’t been here long.
” She wondered what he would say if he’d picked her up at her modern penthouse apartment downtown.
Would he turn tail and run or stick around and mentally count the money in her bank account like some of her previous dates had done?
At least, that’s what it seemed like when she saw their eyes light up like firecrackers when they figured out who her father was.
“Where were you before now?” he asked.
“In an apartment,” she answered honestly, and picked up the quilt.
“I’ve seen some of those complexes, and I bet this is a lot less noisy,” he said.
“In some ways, it is, and it’s much quieter than the city. What about you?”
Bubba took the quilt from her and stood to the side to let her leave the house first. “Up in northern Texas, a little town right on the Red River called Ringgold.”
“Where you work on a ranch, right?”
“Yes, ma’am, but I’m moving to a new job a few miles north of Katy next week,” he answered.
She slung her purse over her shoulder and handed the quilt to him. “Why?”
“Better job,” he answered.
He shortened his stride to walk beside her out to his truck, which didn’t look a lot better than the one she drove to the speed-dating event the night before. He tossed the quilt in the back seat and opened the passenger door for her.
Holly watched him round the front of the truck and felt more than a little guilty about lying to him.
He didn’t seem like the kind of man who would want to be with her because of her money, but then, she’d been wrong about guys in the past. She put that thought from her mind and enjoyed the sight in front of her.
Bubba had sure enough dressed to impress that evening in his polished boots, creased jeans, a belt buckle with a bull rider on it, and a cowboy hat.
For the first time, Holly wished that she was really and truly Lula Ann.
“Five minutes isn’t enough to get to know someone,” Bubba said as he slid behind the steering wheel. “So tell me about yourself.”
Not even his sexy swagger and deep drawl amazed Holly as much as he did when he managed the stick shift on the floor of the truck as smoothly as a race-car driver.
“You first, and start with how old you were when you learned to drive a vehicle with gears like that. I’ve never even tried driving anything but an automatic vehicle, and I love one that can parallel park itself. ”
“I was maybe six or seven,” he answered as he backed the truck out of the driveway and turned right.
“I had to sit on two pillows and stretch to reach the pedals. They needed another hand to help haul hay. I was too scrawny in those days to pick up the bales, but I could drive for the big boys. How about you?”
“My story isn’t as colorful as yours. I was fifteen and took a driver’s education class at the school that summer,” she answered. “Did your father work on the ranch, too?”
“Yes, he did, and so did my sister and my mother. We all had jobs. Do you have siblings?”
She shook her head. “I’m an only child. Daddy said after getting a girl with the temper to go with red hair that he didn’t want any more kids. I found out later that they had adopted me because my mama couldn’t have children.”
That was something that she never shared with a date, especially not on the first one.
“My sister is the same. She adopted twin girls five years ago, and just recently added another little cowgirl to the mix. I love my nieces, and they have their Nunky wrapped around their fingers.”
“Nunky?” she asked.
He shrugged and flashed half a grin. “The twins couldn’t say uncle. It came out Nunky, so that’s what I got tagged with.”
“It’s cute. I like it.” Holly pictured him with his nieces out in a pasture picking wildflowers for their mama and maybe grandmother.
Then a picture of their children—hers and Bubba’s—flashed through her mind.
She shook her head to get the image out of her mind.
It was way too soon to even entertain thoughts like that, not when the relationship, if it could even be called that, could never go anywhere.
In a fantasy world, Lula Ann could date Bubba. In the real world, it would never work.
“I love my nieces, but someday I want a whole yard full of kids,” he said.
“Oh really?”
“Yep,” he said with a nod.
“What are your nieces’ names?” she asked, and tried to erase the visual of the two of them as parents.
“Matilda and Madalyn. The new baby is MaLynn,” he answered.
“That’s a lot of M names.”