Wild Cowboy Ways (Lucky Penny Ranch #1)(40)

“A beautiful, sexy carpenter who looks right gorgeous with a hammer in her hands,” Blake said.

“Y’all going to jaw all day in there or are we going to watch our movie?” Deke called out.

“We’re on the way and I don’t want to hear a word about my socks,” Allie said as she made her way from kitchen to living room.

Blake kicked off his boots and settled on the other end of the long leather sofa from Allie. Halfway though the movie she pulled her legs up and stretched them out toward him and he did the same, situating his on the outside. He moved his right one slightly so that it touched hers, and she didn’t jerk it away or give him a dirty look.

Progress! By damn! That was progress.

A month ago he would have been telling some woman good-bye that he’d spent the weekend with, maybe saying that he’d call her with no intentions of ever doing so. Or maybe she’d walk him to the door and tell him that it had been fun but one weekend of fun with him was all a woman could handle. Tonight he was almost shouting because Allie hadn’t moved her leg away from his. Toby wouldn’t believe it or understand if he tried to tell him, and forget about saying anything to Jud. He was the loudest of the three about staying a bachelor until his dying breath.

“I’m pausing the show for a bathroom break. I’ll bring in some beers on my way back,” Deke said.

Allie shifted positions and her foot touched his hip. He picked it up and put it in his lap and began to massage it and suddenly, things weren’t boring at all.

“God, that feels good,” she said.

“I’m not God,” Blake said.

“You know what I mean.”

He pulled the other foot over and worked on it. “You are too tense, woman. Loosen up and enjoy life.”

She eased her feet back and tucked them under her, pulling the sweater dress down to cover them.

“He’s right.” Deke set three beers on the coffee table and settled back into the recliner. “You should have more fun.”

“Y’all are ganging up on me,” she said. “Turn the movie back on. I like Crazy Cora more and more as the story plays out. I don’t think she’s nearly as crazy as everyone thinks.”

Layers, Deke had said. Was one of Allie’s layers nothing but a protective coating against men since her husband left her?





Chapter Eleven



On Monday morning five inches of snow had turned the countryside around Dry Creek into a winter wonderland. The wind had died down and there had been a glorious sunrise that morning. The weight of wet snow was heavy on the mesquite and scrub oak tree branches. Cardinals dotted the white landscape like little rose petals dropped from heaven to add color to the new monochromatic picture.

The beauty wouldn’t last long. Cars, trucks, and other vehicles would soon leave their tracks. Animals had to leave behind footprints. Cattle would stir up the snow, and by nightfall, if the sun stayed out, what was left would turn to mud that would freeze by morning. But later didn’t matter as Allie drove slowly from Audrey’s Place to the Lucky Penny. Right then, that moment, when everything looked like a fairy tale, that’s what mattered.

The Lucky Penny house was empty when she arrived and somehow it looked even worse without Deke and Blake there. Without those two big cowboys to talk to her or at least to each other while she listened, she noticed the ugly paint on the walls, the nasty stains on the ceilings, and the scuffed marks on the woodwork even more.

She sighed when she reached the bedroom and then smiled. It reminded her of Cinderella in her rags, kind of like the muddy mess the snow would make when it melted. But in a week, the room would be the princess in all her glory with its new paint job, pretty new ceiling, shiny hardwood floors, and that big beautiful king-size bed taking center stage. Then it would be as fresh and pretty as the morning with nothing marring the beauty of fresh-fallen snow.

The bare lightbulb would be replaced by the six-blade oak fan with a lovely school-glass light kit. It had been the last one in stock and on a seventy-five percent off sale so she’d bought it on a whim, and now she was having second thoughts. He might have asked what she’d do to the room if she had to sleep in it the rest of her life, but he hadn’t meant she could go off half-cocked and buy something without even asking him about it.

First she had to tear out the nasty old before she could put in the shiny new. She smiled as she thought of her father saying those very words every time they started a new job.

As brittle as the old drywall was, it wouldn’t be nice and come down in four-by-eight sheets. It would fall in chunks of every size that would throw white powder and mildew dust everywhere. She shut the door and opened the window.

Sure it would get cold but she’d dressed in thermal underwear, cargo pants, an old cotton western shirt, and insulated coveralls. She put her earbuds in and pushed the button on the tiny little MP3 player tucked into her pocket.

George Strait entertained her as she brought down the ceiling a piece at a time and then went back to remove all the nails from the ceiling joists. It was close to noon when she finished. The room was still filled with a fog of white powder and the old carpet would never be usable again, not with that much white powder ground down into the fibers.

With the music in her ears she didn’t know anyone was in the house until Blake touched her on the ankle. She jerked the earbud out and frowned. “You scared the shit out of me. Don’t sneak up on a woman holding a hammer.”