Chapter 11 #2
“Ever thought about ridin’ a bull?” Duane asked.
Adrenaline shot through him. “You have Brahma bulls at this rodeo of yours?”
“A few. Some of the ranchers’ round here like to keep ‘em. Eb Whitlock’s got a big one that’s never been rode. He’s called Grateful Dead, ‘cause when you get outta the ring, you’re grateful you ain’t dead.”
Ry could almost taste the danger. And he was far too drawn to it. Better to switch topics. “Duane, where’s the best place to pick up some Western clothes?”
“I always like the Buckle Barn. The stuff’s not too fancy, but it works good.”
“In Tucson?”
“Why, no, it’s down the road a piece, in La Osa.”
“A shopping mall?”
Duane laughed so hard he almost swallowed his chaw. “I reckon not,” he said at last, gaining control of himself. “It’s a little town, La Osa is. ‘Bout ten miles northwest.”
What the hell. Might as well go exploring. “Would it be possible to borrow a truck or something, so I can drive there?”
Duane scratched his chin. “Well, now, I can’t think of what you could take.
My truck’s tore apart, waitin’ for the new carburetor Freddy’s bringin’ from town.
Leigh’s left already, and she borrowed Freddy’s truck ‘cause hers needs a new fan belt, which Freddy’s also bringin’, and Freddy’s got the van.
There’s the stove-up vehicles the hands drive, but I’d be real reluctant to put you in one of them.
You could break down, easy. Now, if Freddy was to come back, you could?—”
“Did I hear my name?” Freddy appeared in the doorway, a leather purse over her shoulder and a plastic bag in one hand.
For the trip to town, she’d worn denim shorts and a True Love Guest Ranch T-shirt.
Her hair was caught up in a ponytail, and instead of a hat, she’d worn sunglasses, which were pushed to the top of her head now that she was indoors.
Ry tried not to stare at the graceful curve of her thighs.
With her face flushed from the heat and her informal outfit, she looked like a teenager — a very sexy teenager.
She flicked a glance his way and nodded. “Hello.”
“Hello.” He hoped his casual greeting fooled her.
Had he imagined he’d be able to create an amiable working relationship with a woman who affected him the way Freddy did?
One look into the sage-colored coolness of her eyes and he longed to replace that indifference with the hot passion he’d seen there the night before.
His hand trembled slightly as he closed his briefcase.
“Here’s the fan belt and the carburetor,” Freddy said, handing Duane the plastic bag. “Let’s hope that’s all that has to be fixed for now.”
“Let’s hope.” Duane tilted his head toward Ry. “He wants to go to the Buckle Barn, git him some clothes. Should I gas up the van for him?”
Freddy looked at Ry with raised eyebrows. “You want some Western clothes to take back to New York?”
So, she remembered that his plane left tomorrow. She was obviously eager for him to be on it. “Something like that.”
“I promised Dexter we’d take him to La Osa this afternoon for an ice-cream sundae,” she said. “It’s a ritual we have once a week, so I can’t loan you the van, but you can ride along.”
It wasn’t the most gracious invitation he’d ever had, but he’d decided he needed to see La Osa.
Anything that might impact on the True Love was important, and he hadn’t even known of the existence of a little town near the ranch.
If it was quaint enough, it might be a selling point for developers. “Sure, that would be great.”
“If you’re going, you should know a few things about Dexter,” she said.
“Because of his stroke, he has aphasia. He understands everything you say to him perfectly, but he can’t always find the right word to respond.
Some people make the mistake of thinking they can talk in front of him as if he weren’t there. But he picks up on everything.”
“Boy, ain’t that the truth,” Duane said. “I think he’s sharper now than ever. He can hear better than I can.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Ry said.
“Meet you out front in fifteen minutes, then,” Freddy said, turning.
“Freddy?”
She glanced back at him.
“The pillow was a nice touch.”
Her gaze challenged his. “I didn’t want you to be uncomfortable today.”
“I feel as if I’ve been cradled in the lap of luxury. In fact, I feel so much better, I’d like you to take me on another ride this evening and show me more of the spread.” God, he was doing it again, looking for excuses to be alone with her. He couldn’t seem to stop himself.
“I wouldn’t advise that,” she said in a superior tone that maddened him. “You’ll just stiffen up again. If Duane fixes Leigh’s truck, we can drive.”
“I’d rather ride.”
She shrugged. “If you insist. You’re the boss.”
“Not yet.”
“No, but I’m certain you will be.”
“Until then, you’re still free to tell me to go to hell.”
“Only a foolish woman would do that, Mr. McGuinnes.” She turned on her heel and left.
Duane gazed after her. “Seems like she’s still a little upset ‘bout that horse-trough dunkin’.”
Ry didn’t think it was that at all, but he couldn’t very well confide in Duane about the kisses in the pool. “You could be right,” he said.
But Duane wasn’t right, Ry thought when he climbed into the van fifteen minutes later. Freddy was all smiles for Dexter, who was ensconced in the seat next to her. With Ry, she was coldly polite. It should have been a turnoff, but instead he found her frosty behavior challenging.
“We’ll drop you off at the Buckle Barn,” she said over her shoulder as she pulled away from the ranch house. “It takes us about thirty minutes to finish our ice cream. Then we’ll come back for you.”
“Okay.”
“What’s he want?” Dexter asked Freddy in a surprisingly deep voice for someone so frail.
Ry leaned forward to answer, but Freddy beat him to it.
“Everything, I guess,” she said. “You know these Easterners.”
“Yeah,” Dexter agreed with a chuckle. Then he glanced at Freddy and made a kissing sound. “Last night. In the pool.”
So he’d been the one who’d coughed and ended the interlude.
Color climbed into Freddy’s cheeks. “That was an unfortunate mistake, Dexter. I was hoping nobody saw that.”
“I did,” Dexter said.
Freddy’s cheeks glowed. “It won’t happen again,” she said through clenched teeth.
“Blame me, Dexter,” Ry said. “I tricked her. She hated every minute of it.”
“Nope, she didn’t,” Dexter said cheerfully.
Freddy groaned. “Dexter, I’d count it the biggest personal favor in the world if you would keep what you saw last night to yourself. Mr. McGuinnes is in the process of buying the True Love, and behavior like last night’s doesn’t reflect well on either of us.”
“Why?”
“We’re in a business relationship, that’s why.”
“Seems okay to me.” Dexter pointed to Freddy’s left hand. “You don’t have one of those things. What are those things?”
“A ring?” she suggested.
“That’s it. A ring.” His face twisted into a scowl. “Remember that guy? Tried to—clap—no—you know.” He smacked his lips again. “To Belinda. She has a ring. Mine.”
“Eb didn’t mean anything by it, Dexter, really. He kissed her on the cheek because she’d baked him his favorite pie.”
“Yeah!” Dexter blustered. “Why’d she do that? She shouldn’t do that.”
Freddy shook her head and grinned at him. “She was being a good neighbor. You are such a jealous husband.”
“Have to be,” Dexter said. “Belinda’s so easy—no—funny—no. What is it? What is it, Freddy? You know.”
“Pretty,” Freddy supplied.
“Yeah, pretty. Belinda’s pretty. I gotta watch. All the time. Watch that guy.”
Ry was so fascinated with the concept that Dexter was still protecting his interests after fifty-some years of marriage that he didn’t notice they were in La Osa until Freddy swung the truck off the road and into a dirt parking lot.
Not that there was much to notice. La Osa was little more than a wide place in the road with three buildings on the right and three on the left.
He rolled back the side door of the van. “Thanks for the lift.”
She glanced at him, her sunglasses disguising her expression. “You’re welcome. We’ll be back in a half hour.”
He consulted his watch. “Fine.” Then he climbed down and closed the van’s side door. As Freddy backed around and pulled onto the road, he took inventory of La Osa.
A giant soft-ice-cream cone angled out over the parking area of a glass-fronted building at the far end of the street.
Obviously the ice-cream parlor. Next to it a large tin-roofed structure was, according to the sign attached to the porch roof, Gonzales’s Feed and Hardware Store.
Above the sign, a life-size statue of a white horse stood on the flat porch roof.
Not just a horse, Ry noticed, but a stallion.
The horse’s gender had been emphasized by some midnight artist who had painted the stallion’s private parts bright blue.
The third business on the far side of the street was a two-pump gas station.
On Ry’s side of the street stood the Buckle Barn, and next to it a low-slung restaurant that promised live country music, well drinks at a dollar each and “The Biggest T-Bone West of the Pecos.” The last business on the strip, looking new and distinctly out of place, was a video store.
It was probably the only establishment that would survive once the housing development went in.
The pickup trucks parked nose first in front of each establishment would be replaced by Saabs and BMWs.
People who drove those kinds of cars wanted a different type of restaurant, a different kind of ice-cream parlor and no feed store whatsoever.
He mounted the wooden steps to the Buckle Barn, barely glancing at the mannequins in the display windows.
He had no time for window-shopping today.
The scent of leather greeted him as he walked in the door and headed for the rows of boots standing on shelves against one wall.
He was one of only two customers in the store, and within twenty minutes he’d found a pair of elk skin boots soft as a glove, three pairs of brushed-denim bootcut jeans that molded perfectly to his thighs, and six Western shirts in various patterns and colors.
He slipped into a dressing room, put on one pair of jeans, a shirt and the boots before he went in search of the final item, the most personal item, a hat.
When Ry wasn’t standing outside the Buckle Barn waiting for her, Freddy decided to go in after him. “Just sit tight,” she instructed Dexter, who was looking sleepy after his weekly hot-fudge sundae binge. “I’ll go fetch that greenhorn.”
Dexter smiled lazily. “Aw, you like him.”
“For God’s sake, don’t say anything like that around him, okay, Dex?
” Usually, Freddy treasured Dexter’s refreshing honesty.
It was as if his stroke had stripped life to the essentials and he wasn’t capable of lies, not even little white ones.
But now he was exposing emotions she wanted to conceal, especially from herself.
“It’s okay,” Dexter said, pointing to her left hand again. “No ring.”
“It’s not that simple.” She was losing patience. “He’s leaving for New York tomorrow, so that will be the end of that. With any luck, he’ll be an absentee landlord like Westridge and I’ll never see him again.”
“Oh, yes, you will.”
“Give it a rest, Dex.” Freddy sighed and opened her door. “Roll down your window to let in the breeze. I’ll be back in no time.”
Inside the front door of the Buckle Barn, she breathed in the new-leather scent and looked around for Ry.
Connie Davis, the owner and Duane’s steady girlfriend for the past two years, rushed up to her and spoke in a conspiratorial whisper. “Is he the one from New York?” She tilted her head toward the back of the store. “The one you were so worried about?”
A giant cardboard cutout of Brooks and Dunn, a popular singing duo, blocked Freddy’s view. “I guess. Tall guy, light brown hair, mid-thirties?”
“Beautiful blue eyes and shoulders that fill out a Western shirt?”
Freddy’s breath hitched. She’d rather not think of Ry in those terms. “I suppose.”
“You don’t have a thing to worry about,” Connie said.
“You’re probably right. After tomorrow, he’ll be back in New York and he can’t very well dictate what goes on at the True Love from that distance.”
“Going back?” Connie looked confused. “He told me he needed some clothes because he planned to be here at least another week.”
Freddy’s heart stilled momentarily. “Maybe you were talking to somebody else. Mr. McGuinnes made reservations at the ranch for three nights only.”
“We can sure find out. Come on back. This fellow is making a final decision on a hat.”
Freddy rounded the Brooks and Dunn display with Connie just as Ry pulled the brim of a black hat low over his eyes. He turned and gave her an easy smile. “Ready?”
She struggled to find a response. Outfitted in borrowed clothes, he’d looked pretty darn good, but nothing compared to the picture he made in jeans that hugged his thighs, supple cotton that moved with each shrug of his broad shoulders and a hat that shadowed his blue eyes, imbuing them with compelling mystery.
She wanted him out of town. “I thought you were leaving tomorrow,” she said.
“Freddy!” Connie shot her a glance. “That wasn’t very nice.”
He regarded her steadily. “I’ve changed my mind.”
“But your reservation?—”
“You have available rooms. You said this was the slow season.”
And the hot season, she thought, noticing how his chest hair peeked from the open neck of his shirt. “Don’t you need to get back? To Wall Street and everything?”
A corner of his mouth tilted up. “No, not as long as the phone lines work. Of course, I suppose you could go out with your wire cutters tonight and force that issue.”
She gasped. “I would never do such a thing.”
“Wouldn’t you? You’ve resorted to just about everything else to get rid of me.” He turned to pick up the rest of his clothes from a chair by the dressing room door. “But it isn’t going to work, so you might as well get used to having me around.”