Chapter 5
Chapter Five
E than had several beers, but no buzz. He was a big guy; he metabolized it faster than he drank it, so he rarely got tipsy unless he was specifically trying. Like when his manager Ang had told him if he didn’t have an album for them by year’s end, his label intended to cancel his contract.
Five beers in, he was uninspired and stone cold sober. He cracked another can.
Lily, on the other hand, was feeling no pain, dancing fireside with the She-Brands, Willow, Maria, and Drew to music spilling from a pickup’s open doors.
Eventually, though, the pizza was gone and the beer was warm. One by one, the cousins peeled off. Maria and Harrison went home. Obviously, the newlyweds wouldn’t want to bunk down with the whole gang. Harrison drove, since he’d stopped drinking early on.
The others headed into the bunkhouse one at a time, until it was only him and Lily.
She stood near the dying fire with her back toward him. The warm yellow glow lit her bright angel’s hair, and outlined her body in that clingy sleeveless, shiny blouse, and butt-hugging jeans.
She rubbed her arms. He spotted her sweater on her chair, got up slow, and slid it over her shoulders.
“Ooh, thanks.” She put her arms into the sleeves and hugged the cardigan around her. “I was too warm a minute ago.”
“Fire’s dyin’ down. Probably oughtta douse it and head inside.”
“Oh.” It was sad, that syllable. Disappointed. She heaved a sigh, then she turned around and put one hand on his chest. She looked up at him and said, “I’m not who everybody thinks I am, you know.” She hiccupped, and looking surprised, pressed her fingers over her lips.
“No?”
“Not at all. ”
“Who does everybody think you are?” he asked. He shouldn’t have. It wasn’t fair to urge her to spill things she might not spill sober. But his desire to hear whatever she wanted to tell him was irresistible.
She turned away, but leaned back against his chest, looking up at the Texas sky—stars from horizon to horizon. Sparks from the fire floated upward now and then, fading as they went. It seemed like they were joining the stars up on the big stage.
He thought about the cantina, about Lily’s ideas, about putting in an addition with a stage and dance floor. With the friends he’d made in the business, there were nine or ten acts he could book with a phone call.
Then he looked down from the stars to their reflections in her eyes. Her gaze shifted, so she met his upside down, leaning back against his chest. His arms had locked around her waist and he didn’t remember moving them.
“They think I’m my mother, a weaker reflection of her, anyway.”
“Because you’re named after her. And you look like her.
” He’d seen photos. When they’d re-interred Lily Marie Hyde, they’d held a graveside service at the pretty little cemetery on the highest point of the Texas Brand.
His birth mother had been moved there, too, long ago.
He understood Lily’s guilt, wondering if she’d disturbed her mother’s rest and whether she would have wanted to be there.
For his part, he didn’t have any doubts his mother would be pleased.
Her sister Chelsea was at the Texas Brand, and so was Ethan, as often as he was anywhere.
But he didn’t know whether Lily had come to the same peace of mind about having her mother exhumed, flown across the country, and re-interred on Brand land.
After the graveside service, there’d been a reception at the ranch house. There were photos of Lily Ellen’s mamma everywhere. She was a true beauty, and Lily did bear a strong resemblance.
But he could see the differences. His Lily’s face was softer, rounded where her mother’s was more angular. Her eyebrows arched more gently, and her eyes…
Were staring into his.
“Everyone called her an angel. And she seemed like one to Harrison and me. Perfect in every way. She always knew what to say. She always knew what to do. She was a great nurse, too. In the ER people would ask for her by name. She saved a lot of lives. She’d have saved Manny.”
“Manny’s fine,” he said.
“I know.” She closed her eyes. “I’m not an angel of mercy like she was.”
“I don’t think it’s a job requirement for nurses,” he said.
“I don’t think I’m a nurse.” She pressed her lips tight, then shook her head. “It’s been tearing me up, every shift I work. So I…gave notice. Two weeks ago, so…”
She stopped looking into his eyes, resumed staring at the stars, but she was still pressed against him. The top of her head was under his chin, her back and shoulders against his chest. He wished he hadn’t brought her the sweater.
“I’m really not any kind of angel,” she said softly, and then she turned around, stood on tiptoe, and pressed her mouth to his.
Ethan crumbled like a week-old cookie. He closed his arms around her and then some, gathering her close, and he kissed her back. She ran her hands through his hair and arched against his thigh. Oh, hell no .
“Hey, hey, here now. Let’s take a breath.” He held her by the shoulders and peeled his body from hers. The air between them was icy. “We can’t uh—you ain’t sober.”
“I don’t care.”
“Well, I do. My uncle didn’t raise me like that, Lily. Besides, you’d care tomorrow.”
“I’ve been thinking about kissing you way longer than I’ve been drinking beer tonight. Like, a whole year longer.”
He pushed a stray curl off her forehead. “I know,” he said. And as she started to scowl, he added, “Me, too.”
“Well then why haven’t we?—”
“This is not a conversation we’re fixin’ to have tonight, Lil. Not like this.”
She hiccupped again, then pouted and lowered her head. “You’re prolly right.”
“I’m for sure right. Come on, let’s get you inside. I’ll come back out to douse the fire.”
“Okay.” He turned her in the circle of his arm and started toward the bunkhouse. She was walking fine, not drunk, just silly and loose.
But suddenly she planted her feet only a few steps from the door and turned and said, “No.”
“No?”
“Nope. I’m not going inside unless you kiss me again. I’ve been very patient, Ethan. I’ve waited a long time and I think I desherve this. ‘Specially after you left me hanging under the mistletoe at Christmas. So I’m not leaving this spot until you?—”
He kissed her. Oh man, did he ever kiss her. She tasted like pizza and beer, and all he wanted was more. He didn’t want to stop. He knew he had to stop. Dang, he didn’t want to stop.
He stopped, straightened, shook his head. “Dang, woman.”
“Yeah. Fire, huh?”
He nodded, reached for the doorknob. “You ready?”
She smoothed her hair, pressed her lips, gave a nod.
He opened the door, and she went inside under her own steam, heeling off her shoes as she walked straight to the far end and crawled into a vacant lower bunk without looking back.
She lay face down with one leg still on the floor and didn’t move again.
Shaking his head, Ethan went the rest of the way inside, passing Willow, who was in the kitchen, putting leftover pizza into the fridge.
She caught his eyes as he passed, raising her eyebrows in question.
He ignored her and continued to the bunk all the way back.
Someone was in one of the two showers, everyone else was in the other bunks.
Trevor snored softly. Drew muttered in her sleep.
Baxter’s mouth was slightly open. He didn’t think anyone was awake besides him and Willow, and whoever was in the shower. Must’ve been Orrin.
He knelt low and tugged the blankets out from under Lily. She shifted and muttered, and then her hands were at the fly of her jeans, and before he could do much of anything, she was shoving them off, down her hips, down her curvy thighs and slender calves to her ankles.
“Uh, Willow?” he whispered, and he turned, but she’d gone outside. He could see her moving around out there, picking things up.
Lily was kicking her feet in slow motion in a failed attempt to remove her jeans.
She had light-blue panties underneath. He peeled the jeans over her feet, and draped them across the foot of the bed, while she continued writhing around under the covers.
When she emerged, she still wore the satiny dark-blue tank top, but her bra dangled from one finger.
She started to throw it, but he grabbed it first and laid it atop the jeans.
She flung back the covers then, and smiling sleepily, patted the mattress beside her.
The blouse clung to her breasts like paint, leaving nothing to his imagination.
He reached down and pulled the covers over her, then he turned to head back outside, moving fast, like the very devil was nipping at his heels.
The brisk night air smacked his face, and he welcomed it as he closed the bunkhouse door behind him.
Willow was out there, gathering beer bottles and cans into their respective boxes.
He went to the hose, already attached to an outdoor spigot, turned it on and aimed it at the fire pit.
As she moved around in the darkness, Willow said, “Saw that kiss.” And when he looked her way sharply, she added, “Kitchen window.”
He shrugged.
She moved past him, gathering more bottles.
He set the hose aside, took up a fire-rake and stirred the coals around. Then he turned the hose on again. He didn’t reply to Willow’s observation because he didn’t know how. He’d kissed Lily. He’d devoured her. Twice. What was there to say?
“She’s a tender thing, you know that, don’t you?”
“Aren’t we all?”
“Well, yeah, but if you’re just gonna leave again?—”
“I know.”
She nodded, carried a 24-pack of empties over to the front door. He shut off the water and wound up the hose, satisfied the fire was thoroughly doused.
“It’s not just you and Lily involved,” Willow said. “You break her heart, it’s gonna mess with Maria and Harrison, too.”
“I…hadn’t thought of that.” He started gathering up the chairs, folding them and sliding them into their respective carrying bags.