Hot Cowboy Nights (Lucky Penny Ranch #2)(15)

“Isn’t Mitch in Mexico?” He opened the door for her.

She hoisted herself up into the passenger’s seat. “News from here to anywhere in the world travels faster than a speeding bullet.”

“I’ll protect you, darlin’.”

Lizzy giggled. “I can protect myself. It’s you who has the problem. You might be a Dawson but that woman could eat you alive, cowboy.”

“Blake managed to dodge her, and I’m tougher than he is,” Toby countered.

“She’s honed her skills in the past five months, darlin’. You ain’t got a sinner’s chance at the pearly gates,” she told him. “Turn at the next corner. You have to drive a little slower on this route, but it’s a nice ride at this time of year.”

He backed the truck around and followed her instructions. “So tell me, Lizzy Logan, whatever made you go into the retail business for ranchers?”

“I inherited it. Granny and Grandpa had the business before I was even born. Grandpa died and Granny kept us kids so Mama and Daddy could work. He helped run the feed business and also did construction. Mama took over the convenience store. Allie followed Daddy around at construction sites, but I was never interested in hammers and nails and all that. I couldn’t wait to get off the school bus and go to the feed store where Daddy always worked the last two hours of the day,” she said. “By the time we were in high school, Allie was getting a paycheck from the construction business and I was pretty much running the store when I wasn’t in school. After graduation, the guy who’d been minding it for us retired and I took over full time.”

“You ever wish you’d gone to college or done something different?” Toby asked.

“Not one time.”

“Then I have a hard personal question. What in the hell made you think you’d be happy married to someone who was probably going to insist that you stop working and be a full-time preacher’s wife?” he asked.

The question wasn’t one she hadn’t asked herself those first few weeks after Mitch dumped her. Her job was a nine-to-five, six days a week, and pretty often if someone needed a bag of feed or some cattle medicine, she’d open up so they could get it after hours or on Sunday.

“That is definitely a hard question but I don’t have to answer it because I didn’t marry Mitch,” she said.

“Hypothetically?” He pressured.

“I wanted to get away from the stigma of Audrey’s Place so badly, Toby,” she said softly. “Even all these decades later, it’s still known as the old whorehouse. Growing up, it was hard.”

“Why? It’s colorful and it doesn’t make you a whore.”

“No but old rumors die hard in Dry Creek,” she said.

He braked so suddenly that the truck tires spun gravel every which way. “Look! Over there up against the mesquite grove. See that big buck and all those does.” His finger shot right under her nose.

Lizzy gasped at the serenity before her eyes. The buck with his head up, not a muscle moving; the does munching away on the grass, knowing they were protected and their babies wouldn’t come to harm. “Look at the fawns,” she whispered. “Aren’t they the cutest things? Sometimes a deer or two comes right up close to the fence at the back side of our property. When we were little girls we used to take a pallet out there and watch for them in the late evening.”

The buck eyed them warily without moving a muscle. The does continued eating the new spring grass, and the fawns romped around unafraid of the strange big black truck.

“He’s protecting his family.” Toby eased his foot from the brake and drove slower.

“My turn to ask questions,” Lizzy said. “What makes you think you’ll be happy in Dry Creek? You are used to being close enough to all kinds of honky-tonks that you can party when you want. What happens when you get bored here?”

“I like to have a good time, Lizzy, but I love to ranch. It’s always been my dream to buy one and build it from scratch. But land prices are high. When the Lucky Penny came up for sale and we found out if we pooled our money we could buy it without a loan, it was a dream come true. I’ll be happy because ranchin’ makes me happy,” he said.

She pondered on that as they crossed the bridge and drove on in to Olney. Would she have found happiness if she did have to give up her store? Would she have simply settled into fitting into the mold that Mitch had carved out for her? When Toby parked in front of the Dairy Queen, she had the answers and they were both a loud hell no!

“Oh. My. God!” she muttered as he laced his fingers in hers and led her inside. “What is she doing here?”

“Who? I thought every woman in Dry Creek was at some church meeting tonight,” Toby asked.

“Mitch’s mother and her friends. I haven’t seen her since Mitch and I broke up,” Lizzy groaned.

“Get into character, darlin’,” he whispered seductively, his warm breath creating delicious shivers up and down her spine. “We can sell this. I know we can.”

“Well, hello, Elizabeth,” Mitch’s mother, Wanda, said.

“Elizabeth?” Toby chuckled.

“She hates my nickname,” Lizzy whispered.

Wanda was an elegant woman in her cute little navy blue slacks and matching powder blue sweater set that matched her cold pale blue eyes. Her thick blond hair was styled in the latest feathered back cut and not one single strand was out of place.