Wild Cowboy Ways (Lucky Penny Ranch #1)(70)

Allie checked the ID hoping it was Blake, but no such luck. “It’s Fiona, Granny, not Blake.”

“Give me that phone.” The older woman jerked it out of her hand. “Fiona, Allie did my hair and my nails and I’m all pretty for you to come home this weekend. Are you on the way? I miss you so much. When was the last time you came home? It’s been five years hasn’t it?”

A pause and Irene set her mouth in a firm line. “Bullshit! You were not home at Thanksgiving. I might be old, but I ain’t stupid. I know…who in the hell is this? I don’t want any magazines so stop calling here.”

And like that, in the blink of an eye, Irene was off in another time warp. “Take this phone and tell those people that I’m sick to death of them buggin’ the shit out of me about magazines. And they are not getting my credit card number, either.”

“Fiona?” Allie said. “Are you still there?”

“Mama called and told me about Granny running off again this morning. I bet she was a sight in that getup. And she said that Blake looks at you like he could eat you up, her words, not mine. And that she invited him to dinner tomorrow after church so she could see y’all together. She’s worried about all this, Allie,” Fiona said.

Allie had forgotten about dinner the next day. She couldn’t face Blake that soon. She would plead a headache, which might not be a lie the way it was pounding right then, and stay home from church. As soon as the family left, she would run away to Deke’s and stay there all day.

Fiona raised her voice. “Are you still there? You didn’t hang up on me, did you?”

That’s when Allie heard the cling of a cash register in the background and lots of people talking at once. Fiona worked in a prestigious law firm in Houston, so why were there noises like a fast food place in the background?

“Where are you?” Allie asked.

“At work,” Fiona said quickly. “Well, not actually at work. I’m at a coffee shop right next door getting a midmorning cup of coffee.”

Allie tried to blink away the headache, but it didn’t work. “I thought I heard cash register noises.”

“Got to go. Just wanted to let you know that Mama is watching you close. See you at the wedding this spring,” Fiona said.

Allie hit the END button and shoved her phone back into her pocket. She heard a soft snore, more like a kitten’s purr, and turned to find Irene curled up on her bed in a ball, sound asleep. Figuring it was a fine time to straighten her grandmother’s room and keep an eye on her at the same time, Allie, hurried off to the utility room for her basket of cleaners.

“Poor old darlin’,” she mumbled, “it has to be hard on her doing all that time travel. I can not imagine living in so many worlds every day.”

She’d finished cleaning the bathroom and had started dusting all the empty perfume bottles on Irene’s dresser, when her phone rang a second time that morning. Expecting it to be Lizzy after she got the gossip of two women keeping three men company the night before, she was surprised to see Blake’s number flashing on the screen.

“Hello,” she answered cautiously. “If you’re calling about the bedroom, I told you in the beginning that I’d have to take days off for family pretty often.”

“We’re going to take down the ceiling in the hall and living room and put up the new drywall. I’m not getting into the bedding and taping, though. We figure we can do this much and come Monday it will be ready for you. Deke is coming over soon as he gets his chores done to help us, too. But that’s not why I’m calling. We need to talk, Allie.”

“You’re coming to Sunday dinner. We’ll talk then.” She picked up a tarnished silver hairbrush and dusted under it.

“Are we still on for a celebration when you finish the bedroom?”

She had to scramble to hold on to the phone and the brush at the same time. “I have no idea. Wouldn’t you much rather go to a bar and pick up a bimbo and have dinner with her, rather than the woman who is working on your house?”

“What are you so mad about? It’s me who has the right to be mad since you said you didn’t care. What am I, Allie? A notch on your bedpost?” His tone turned edgy.

She shut her eyes against the headache that threatened. “I’m not fighting with you on the phone, Blake Dawson.”

“Then I’ll come over there and we can fight in person.”

She didn’t want to see him or talk to him, on the phone or in person, until the steam stopped pouring out of her ears. He’d accused her of being nothing more than one of those bar bitches who’d go to bed with anything that had a penis. Notch on her bedpost, indeed! If they compared, hers would have two notches where his would look like a carved-up totem pole.

“I think we’d both best cool off before we see each other,” she said tersely.

“Maybe so. I’ll see you in church,” he said, and the phone went dark.





Chapter Twenty-one



Allie woke up with the determination that she would not go to church and she would not have Sunday dinner with her family. She planned a shopping trip to Wichita Falls where she would check out all the after-holiday sales and maybe take in an afternoon matinee.

She went through six outfits that morning before finally settling on a long straight skirt in brown and beige chevron stripes and a sweater the same color as her eyes. She curled her hair and applied makeup, glanced at herself in the mirror, and decided she was entirely too bland. She traipsed across the landing to Fiona’s room and rifled through the accessories she’d left in her closet. She tried on a pretty scarf but the damn thing choked her. Finally, she settled on a heavy gold necklace with a set of crossed pistols, covered with sparkling fake diamonds.