Hot Cowboy Nights (Lucky Penny Ranch #2)(53)

“Well, I never,” Dora June huffed. “No, I don’t want to drink with you and I think it’s a cryin’ shame that you’ve gone so far backward from that sweet girl who was going to be a preacher’s wife.”

“Don’t blame me for Mitch’s sins,” Lizzy said coldly.

Allie pushed through the back door and closed it behind her. “Hey, I’m taking a break and thought we might get something to drink in your office. Oh, hello, Dora June. What brings you to town this fine spring morning?”

“I’m going home to pray for you girls. Since Irene was put away up there in that glorified nursing home, the whole bunch of you.” She threw up a palm, shut her eyes, and shivered. “Y’all have gone over the edge. This one talking about…about…”

“Hot cowboy sex that gets you all sweaty?” Lizzy finished the sentence for her.

“Edge of what?” Allie asked.

“The edge of morality. Pregnant and right out in public doing a man’s work. Drinking? Irene would be ashamed. I’m going to gather up the ladies from the church and we’re going to have a prayer vigil for you.”

“I thought we’d been excommunicated from your ladies’ group,” Allie said.

“We pray for all sinners,” Dora June mumbled on her way to the door. She was still shaking her head when the cowbell announced that she had left.

“What caused all that? I only wanted a soda from your refrigerator,” Allie said.

Lizzy led the way to the office where she sank down into her chair. “It’s a long story. Help yourself to a soda and pull up a chair. I’ll tell you the rest while you take a break.”

Allie came close to spewing soda pop right out her nose several times during the story, which Lizzy embellished with hand movements and different voices.

“Lord, Lizzy, you sound enough like her that you could call Truman and he wouldn’t know that he wasn’t talking to his wife.” Allie hiccupped.

“And then you came in and asked for a drink. It was the icing on the cupcake.” Lizzy laughed with her sister. “Tomorrow we will both be drunks. You’ll have a baby addicted to alcohol and you and Mama will be looking for rehab centers to put me in. And I’m sure,” Lizzy went on, “that all of this will be blamed on those sexy Dawson cowboys. I can’t wait until Jud gets here in the fall. That will give the rumors about time to die down, and his arrival can start a whole new bunch.”

The laughter stopped and Allie’s face turned serious. “You aren’t in love with Toby, are you?”

“The townspeople don’t know that. They think we are a hot little item, remember,” Lizzy quickly covered her tracks.

“Don’t you wish that they’d leave us alone and pray for someone else for a change?” Allie sighed.

Lizzy left the chair, rounded the desk, and hugged her sister. “It will burn itself out pretty soon and they’ll move on. When they see that these Dawson cowboys are going to turn that ranch into a fine place they’ll gag on their words, and how much whiskey they think we drink won’t even be worth mentioning.”

“I hope it happens real soon,” Allie said.



On Wednesday morning Toby and Blue settled into the truck, put in an Alan Jackson CD, and drove out to the back pasture. Today he and Blake were going to work cattle. Castrate the bull calves, vaccinate them all, and check them over good to make sure they were healthy.

Blake was standing beside a couple four-wheelers when Toby got to the pasture. Not a cow or calf was in sight, but he did hear a calf bawling off to the left where they were all probably either belly deep in the farm pond or else bunched up together under the shade of a scrub oak tree.

“There’s one old cow that produces good-size calves, but she’s wild as hell and she usually throws that DNA right over into her calves. Crawl on one of these things and we’ll go round up as many as we can into the corral,” Blake said.

“Come on, Blue. It’s time to run some of that bologna fat off your ribs,” Toby said as he settled down into the seat of the four-wheeler. “I like horses better for this,” he yelled over the noise of the engine.

“Me, too, and maybe next year we’ll have a few but today, this is what we have,” Blake said. He made a clucking noise with his tongue and Shooter took off toward the mesquite.

The cows came right along to the corral with the calves, meandering around the mesquite like they had all day to go nowhere. But the guys didn’t rush them. A stampede might cause them to veer off to either side and refuse to go into the corral at all.

By midmorning the job of separating the calves from their mamas had started. That was where the muscle work came in and the sweating really started. Toby got a hand around one little bull calf and led him to the round pen with no problem, but the minute he started bawling for his mama, the others got the message loud and clear and they huddled up in the far corner.

Blake nodded and got out his kit containing the vaccines. “Bring her on in the chute and down to the head gate and let’s get her shots so she can get back with her mama. Soon as you see what cow she goes with, we’ll pop an ear tag in her ear. Bulls can go from there to the table to get their rings.”

Toby started the black calf toward the chute leading to the head gate, but the feisty animal turned at the last minute and made a beeline back toward her mama on the other side of the fence. Blue steered her away and back toward Toby, but when she saw him, she put her head down and ran right at him. When she was close enough he reached down and scooped her up into his arms.