Chapter Nine #3
“Sure you did. But it’s better this way. When he comes home, we’ll decide where to go from there. For now, I’ll drive you to Houston on Sunday to see him. Want to go?”
“Oh, yes,” she said. Her expression was soft, wondering. “You’d do that, for me?”
He smiled. “Anything you want, kiddo,” he murmured. “It’s the least I can do for the only woman who’s ever proposed to me.”
She pursed her lips and gave him an impish look. “We could lie down and talk about it.”
“No, we couldn’t,” he told her firmly, and chuckled as he removed her hands from his shirt.
“I have to get back to work. I was in the middle of a meeting when you did your snake charmer routine. I left twelve employees sitting in the boardroom with glasses of water and no ashtrays. At least six of them smoke, despite all the regulations. I expect they’ve attacked the other six with chairs by now, or vice versa. I’ve got to get back. Quick.”
“I’d love to go Sunday,” she said.
“Fine. I’ll run you up there Sunday afternoon. We can go to church first.”
Her eyebrows lifted. “I’m Methodist.”
He grinned. “So are we. It’s a date.” He opened the door. Before he went out it, he glanced back over his shoulder. “And stay out of the henhouse for the rest of the day, will you?”
“Anything for my prospective fiancé,” she said with a theatrical gesture of her arm.
He shook his head and walked out, still chuckling.
* * *
Later, she wondered what he’d meant, about making decisions when her father got out of rehab. She didn’t dare think too hard about it. But it sounded very much as if he wanted to go on looking out for her.
She was a modern woman. She could look out for herself.
But it was kind of nice to have a man act protective and possessive, especially one like Rey, who didn’t seem the sort to do it habitually.
She remembered the hunger in his lean body when he held her, when he kissed her.
She remembered the strange tenderness he reserved for her.
It was an adventure, just being around him.
They’d known each other such a short time, really, but she felt as if she’d known him all her life.
The thought of going back to Houston without him was suddenly frightening.
She did the routine things until Sunday, except that when she gathered eggs, she was overly cautious about going into the henhouse. She’d learned from Rey that snakes often traveled in pairs, so she was careful to look before she stepped anywhere that the ground was covered.
She’d become something of a legend among the Hart ranch hands already. They removed their hats when she walked by, and they spoke to her in respectful tones.
“It’s really strange,” she remarked at the dinner table on Saturday evening, glancing from Leo to Rey. “The men seem sort of in awe of me.”
Rey chuckled and exchanged an amused look with his brother. “They are. None of them has ever picked up a copperhead on a stick.”
“It let me,” she reminded him.
“That’s the awesome thing,” Leo remarked. “You see, Meredith, copperheads have a nasty reputation for attacking without provocation. It’s kind of mystic, what you did.” He pursed his lips and gave her a teasing glance over his buttered biscuit. “Any snake charmers in your family?”
“No, but Mike had a pet boa for a while, until it ate one of the neighbor’s rabbits,” she sighed.
“Yuccch!” Rey said, and shivered.
“It was an accident,” Meredith insisted. “It escaped out the window and was gone for three weeks. We figured it was starving, because it hadn’t been fed in so long. Besides that,” she added, “the rabbit was vicious. It attacked everybody who opened the cage.”
“Why did the neighbor keep rabbits?”
“He sold them for meat to a specialty grocery store.”
Rey chuckled. “Maybe the boa was a reincarnated taste-tester,” he mused.
Leo made a face. “I wouldn’t eat a rabbit if I was starving. On the other hand, snake’s not so bad. Remember when we were in Arizona on that hunting trip, camping out, and our guide caught that big, juicy rattler?”
“Sure do,” Rey agreed, nodding. “Tasted just like chicken!”
Obviously that was a private joke, because the brothers looked at each other and burst out laughing.
“What became of the boa?” Leo asked, interested.
“Mike had just sold it to a breeder,” she recalled sadly.
“He was engaged to the sweetest, kindest girl I ever knew. It devastated her when he was killed. They had to sedate her for two days, and she couldn’t even go to the funeral.
” She shook her head. “I felt as sorry for her as I did for Dad and me.”
“What happened to her?” Leo asked.
She finished her coffee. “She became a missionary and went to South America with a group of them.” She winced. “She had the worst luck…it was that plane that was mistaken for drug smugglers and shot down. I think she was one of the survivors, but she didn’t come back to America with the others.”
“Poor kid,” Rey said.
“Colter was upset over the shooting for a long time, too,” Leo recalled. “Just between you and me, he was sweet on Mike’s girl, but too much a gentleman to do anything about it. He thought the sun rose and set on Mike.”
“I never knew,” Meredith said softly.
“Neither did Mike. Or the girl,” Leo added with a smile. “Colter’s a clam. He never talks.”
“Is he still with the Texas Rangers?” Meredith asked.
Leo nodded. “Got promoted to lieutenant just recently. He’s good at his job.”
She pushed back from the table. “If you two are through, I’ll just wash up. Rey’s going to drive me up to see my dad tomorrow.”
“What a sweet guy!” Leo exclaimed with a wide-eyed look at his brother.
“He’s being nice to me, because I’m the only woman who ever proposed to him,” Meredith volunteered with a wicked grin. “He feels guilty because he turned me down.”
“Good. I’ll marry you, Meredith,” Leo volunteered at once. “You just name the time and place, and I’ll buy a new suit…!”
“Shut the hell up!” Rey said curtly, and hit his brother with his Stetson.
Leo protected his shoulder. “Meredith, he’s picking on me!” he wailed.
“Do you want biscuits for breakfast?” she asked Rey.
He stopped flogging his brother. “All right. But only for biscuits,” Rey said. He got up and deliberately bent and kissed Meredith, right in front of Leo. “Don’t stay up too late. Leo and I have to check the livestock in the barn.”
“Okay. Wear a jacket,” she said, smiling up at him.
He bent and brushed his mouth against hers one more time. “It’s not cold.”
“It is. Wear a jacket,” she insisted.
He sighed and made a face, but he picked up his lightweight denim jacket from the hat stand by the back door as he went out.
Leo followed him, but with a new expression on his face. He’d seen something he hadn’t expected during that teasing exchange. He wondered if Rey realized that he was in love with that sweet little biscuit-making woman. And unless he missed his guess, it was mutual.