Hot Cowboy Nights (Lucky Penny Ranch #2)(35)

Lizzy was in a horrible mood that Saturday night. She had dealt, finally, with the insurance company, and the work to repair the store could begin on Monday. Allie and Deke had set aside time to get it done, barring bad weather. Folks might not pray for a tornado, but they did for rain at least twice a day and three times on Sunday, and either storms or rain could slow down the work.

She dressed in jeans, a plaid pearl snap shirt, and her most comfortable boots, the ones she’d gone dancing in the week before. She brushed out her hair and thought about the curling iron but, hey, this wasn’t a real date. Why do the whole nine yards? They could each take a book, go to the banks of the river, and sit in the bed of his truck and read until time to come home. As long as he picked her up at about the right time and gave her a good night kiss on the porch before he left, the gossipmongers would be satisfied.

“Damn it, this whole play-dating thing is so childish that he should be picking me up in a little red wagon and taking me up the lane to get a snow cone.” She fussed at her reflection in the mirror.

The doorbell rang and she picked up her purse. Toby was braced against the doorjamb when she opened the old-fashioned screen door and stepped out onto the porch. Sweet Lord! He looked like sex on a stick in that plaid shirt that stretched across his chest and tucked into his trim waist behind a big silver belt buckle. His blue eyes never left hers and—well, merciful heavens—all that sweltering heat would convince anyone that they were seriously dating. A soft breeze delivered his aftershave right to her nose. The scent was something clean and fresh like a hot summer night with a hint of musk in the air after a warm rain.

“I’m leaving, Mama. See you tomorrow morning,” she called over her shoulder, amazed that her voice sounded even semi-normal.

“So you are planning to stay out all night?” Toby wiggled his eyebrows, his eyes dancing with mischief.

“No, Mama won’t be home until midnight. She and her two friends are going to dinner and then to a late movie. I’ll be snoring long before she gets home,” Lizzy said.

“Where to?” Toby ushered her out to the truck.

“I don’t care if it’s a Dairy Queen cheeseburger. Matter of fact that sounds delicious, but the closest one is in Olney and you know what happened when we went there. The next one is up in Seymour and that’s forty miles from here,” she said.

“Sounds good to me. You navigate and I’ll drive,” he said.

“I’m hungry so we’ll take the shortcut. It’s back roads but very little traffic.”

He nodded when she told him which way to turn, and they made it to the Dairy Queen in thirty-eight minutes. She’d kept count of the words he’d said during that time and it was far less than a word a minute. This fake shit wasn’t worth a damn when it came right down to it.

He parked at the edge of the parking lot and when he opened the door for her, she caught a whiff of something floral.

“Honeysuckle.” He sniffed the air.

“I’m going to plant it when I get my own place. I love that smell and the vines are pretty three seasons out of the year,” she said, and smiled.



Well, hell’s bells on a snake oil wagon! If he’d known honeysuckle could turn her pretty lips into a smile, he would have found a whole fistful and brought them to her. “Oh, yeah, and what else are you going to do to your own place? I figured you’d be content to live at Audrey’s Place forever.”

She shook her head. “That’s home and I will most likely end up living there because of default. Fiona is married and living in Houston. She has no desire to ever come home. Allie is settling in real well over on y’all’s ranch, and she won’t come back to Audrey’s now that she’s got a home with Blake.”

The scent of burgers, fries, and taco seasonings met them when they were inside the place. “But it’s not what you wanted, is it?”

“No, looks like they’ve got a special on tacos. Now I don’t know what I want. I’ve been craving a big juicy bacon cheeseburger, but those tacos sure smell good,” she said.

They lined up behind an elderly couple who couldn’t make up their minds between chicken sandwiches or shrimp baskets. Toby used the time to ask her again what she’d have if she could build anything.

“I always thought I’d start with a trailer house. When I was a kid I went over onto the Lucky Penny property to the east of us and discovered this really old water well. I used to dream that someday I would own that little bit of acreage and would put a trailer on it that was all mine and use that well for the water. Then when I got it paid for I would build a house and sell the trailer to Fiona,” she said. “But that was a ten-year-old little girl’s dream as she laid on her back and looked up past the mesquite and cow tongue cactus at the clouds in the sky.”

“Why wouldn’t you sell it to Allie?” he asked.

“When I was ten, I did not like my older sister. She was bossy.”

Toby laughed so loud that the elderly couple turned around.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“Never apologize for humor,” the lady said. “It’s what makes life worth living.”

“What is so funny?” Lizzy whispered.

“I hated my older brothers and even my cousin Jud when I was ten years old, too. They were full of themselves and bossy as hell,” he said.