Wild Cowboy Ways (Lucky Penny Ranch #1)(28)

“He could have called. I put my number on the flyer.” Blake’s excitement level jacked up from the bottom of the barrel to cloud level in the time it took him to find a decent pair of jeans, dust off his boots, and change shirts.

Blake was on his way to the living room when Deke opened the door and said, “Come on in here out of the cold. Blake and I are about to take a ride. Want to go with us?”

“No thanks,” Allie answered. “I came to do some measuring for supplies if that’s okay,” she said. “I can do it tomorrow though if y’all are going out.”

“You’re running away from family.” Deke chuckled.

“Maybe…But I do need to measure the rooms to get an idea of how much drywall to buy.”

“You might as well go with us if you are running from family.” Blake grinned.

“And maybe Grady and Lizzy will get the message if they figure out you’d rather be with us as with them.” Deke chuckled.

“I didn’t come over here to crash y’all’s party,” she said.

He’d always seen her in cargo pants and paint-splattered knit shirts, but tonight she wore skinny jeans, cowboy boots, and a knit top that stretched over her breasts and cinched in a tiny waist above well-rounded hips. Her hair, usually worn in two dark braids with a stocking hat stuffed down over them or a ponytail, hung to her shoulders in soft waves.

“I’m not taking no for an answer. You can measure tomorrow morning. We’re going for a ride. Besides you’re dressed up. Be a shame to waste all that beauty.” Deke placed his hands on her shoulders and ushered her out onto the porch. “I’ll drive, Blake, since I know the way.”



In minutes Allie found herself wedged between two big cowboys in the front seat of Deke’s truck, heading north out of town. The sun was dropping quickly behind the gently rolling hills and the moon had already made its appearance. Stars would be popping out soon, but right then that lazy part of the evening called dusk had settled in and she didn’t care where they were going as long as it took her away from Grady.

Deke turned the radio on to the country music station but she couldn’t concentrate on the songs that played one after the other. Not with Blake sitting so close that she could practically feel his pulse and especially not when they hit a bump in the road and it sent her sliding even closer to him.

She righted herself and listened to Lizzy’s voice in her head lecturing her about how foolish she was to even go for a ride with those two bad boys. She pushed the voice away about the time they passed from Throckmorton County over into Baylor County, and her eyes widened, grew dry when she couldn’t blink, and then she gasped.

“My God, Deke, are you headed for Frankie’s?”

“I am.” He grinned. “How do you know about Frankie’s?”

“Everyone knows about it, but…” she stammered.

Deke patted her knee. “But no decent folks go there, right? Matter of fact, if Frankie don’t know you pretty good, then you don’t get anything but barbecue. He’ll tell you that the beer and the liquor is for his personal use and isn’t for sale. Don’t worry, darlin’. Frankie knows me and if I vouch for you two, he won’t toss you out on your asses.”

“What is this place, anyway?” Blake asked.

“Private barbecue club, but I have a membership since Frankie buys his beef from me. Don’t know who he gets the pork from but they’ve probably got a membership card, too.”

“Have you ever been there?” Blake asked Allie.

“Hell, no!”

Deke made a left turn and then a right before the road ended in a rutted trail that led another quarter of a mile through thick mesquite and scrub oak. Finally, he parked in front of a weathered old two-story house with dim lights showing through the downstairs window. “Well, y’all are going tonight. We’re going to have some of the best ribs in the world and then we’re going to have a few drinks and maybe dance to the jukebox.”

“Sounds like a bar to me,” Blake said. “But it doesn’t look like a bar.”

“It’s not a bar because half of it is in Throckmorton County and that’s a dry county. The other half of the house is in Baylor County, which is semi-dry. They can sell beer in some parts of it but no liquor by the drink. Truth is the living room is in Throckmorton County. Don’t worry. Nobody messes with Frankie, not even the police. Come on. Let’s go have some fun,” Deke said.

Allie could sit in the truck all evening or she could crawl out and go into a place even more notorious than Audrey’s Place. Frankie’s had been the evil place that teenagers were afraid to say the name out loud for fear the wind would carry it back to their parents and they’d be put into solitary confinement until they were twenty-one years old.

Deke walked onto the porch with confidence, slung open the door, and held it for them to enter before him. “Hey, Frankie, these are my friends, Allie and Blake.”

Allie had always pictured Frankie as someone as big as a refrigerator with a scowl on his face and a shotgun in his hand. She was surprised when a little guy who barely came up to Deke’s shoulder nodded at her. His baby face was round and he wore little round wire-rimmed glasses. There were no wrinkles in his face and his size made it hard to guess his age. She squirmed beneath his dark eyes when they scanned her and Blake.