Gypsies, Tramps, and Thieves(64)



If she had learned anything about herself, if she wanted anything, she knew it was never to be separated from those she loved . . . but even if it meant that same dueling of hearts that was her parents’ tormented way of loving? An intense loving that became a duel to the death, if only in the sense of a love-sick heart slowly dying?

She did know she had come to terms with the desolating fact that she was the only person she could count on.

Which meant, when reflecting upon the nights she now spent spooning with Duke in his bed, required a great deal of mental surgery. Aye, the way he touched her, held her, coaxed her, the way he bit her earlobe that equaled an intensely pleasant sensation, the way he gave his self over to her, his flaring, blue eyes betraying in that climatic moment a soul-deep way of loving . . . .

It was as close to paradise as she was likely to come, outside of Ireland – because those were the nights, but with the dawning of each day, he treated her with a formal, almost courtly reserve, a chivalrous decorum, when in front of the ranch hands. Holy Mother, even Helen Keller could see the sizzling between her and Duke. The men had to know.

And, thus, come the stroke of each dawning, Cinderella turned into ordinary pumpkin pie, alas. Each succeeding morning, she would get out her mental scalpel and excise that portion of her nighttime recollections of a fiery and dominant lover who, at times, could be unaccountably gentle and even playful.

Like the night before, when, fascinated by her tiny toes and, light of heart, he had played “This Little Piggy”, tweaking her toes and making her laugh so hard she was pleading with him to stop.

And at that, as he sat on the mattress, half-facing her out flung body, he had lifted to his mouth her foot, fitting easily in his palm’s width. His lips lingeringly tugging on each toe one by one, he had taken immense pleasure in watching her befuddled and bemused reaction.

“Well, I’ll swan,” she had been barely able to rasp aloud, her breath hitched by a purring moan from somewhere in the back of her throat.

With the sun still high in a simmering turquoise sky, she gave the braided rug one last hardy whack – only to come up short by Duke, shoving aside the rug to face her with a sooty, smoldering look that was in no way a carnal one.

A fistful of papers with miniscule but innumerable printed words he held in his left hand, along with an envelope. He thrust them toward her. “Seems you’re in demand.”

Helplessly, she stared at them. “Ye know I cannot read that well,” she got out in a shamed whisper.

His free hand took the tennis racquet from her and slung it with force into the chaparral just beyond the large outdoor kettle, used for boiling the hands’ dirtiest clothes. “Time you learned.”

Grabbing her hand, he tugged her up the porch steps and into his office. He nudged her past the paper mounded desk and shoved her to sit onto the worn split-leather sofa. He planted his Colossus’ height in front of her. “Do you want to work for me – or for yourself, Sunshine?”

Her mouth opened and closed like Old Duke’s had been doing at list last. “I already work for ye. Do I not?” she asked with a sudden, sinking feeling. Had Duke’s nights with her become repetitiously boring? After all, she was only one small variant of an earth full of females.

Sailing his straw Stetson onto the wrought iron hat tree by his desk, he slumped beside her, and the cushion’s cracked leather gave beneath his weight. He thrust the papers toward her.

Taking them, she stared at their blur of words. Disliking doing it but too nervous to concentrate, she asked, “What do they say?”

He looped an arm over the sofa back and, leaning his breadth into her, pointed a blunt fingertip at the three words at the top one-third of the page, darker and larger than the multitude of ones below. “You know the first one, Sunshine.” His tone could have incinerated a human body.

She studied and made out the word ‘GRAND.’

She turned to look up at him. “Grand what?” she choked out.

His forefinger jabbed at the other two emboldened words. “Ole – and Opry. Grand Ole Opry. They want to audition you.”

“Me? For when? What date? And will they pay me? In more than food or drinks?”

An exhalation drained the anger from those lips that burned hers far more than she burned the morning’s toast. His fingers plowed through his equally burnt oak mane. “They want to sign you for a year’s performance alongside Roy Acuff and the Smoky Mountain Boys – if you nail the audition. Next month. The first of August.”

She recalled listening to the Smoky Mountain Boys on the program while she washed dinner dishes. “Alongside the likes of Roy Acuff?” It beggared her imagination. But something inside her begged for more. “Do ye want me to go?”

His brows met above his bladed nose, then the harshness eased from his features. “It’s what you want. And what you need is a contract lawyer. Someone like Gideon to go over the fine print with an eagle eye.”

If Duke had wanted her, wanted her as part of his ranch family, he would have fought to keep her. She knew that much about him. Aye, he was frustrated about the possibility of losing her – a capable cook now and, what was more, an available bedpartner.

Yet his words were uttered so matter-of-factly. As if their nights entwined, breaths shared, meant little more to him than a slaking of his passion. As much as she hated to face the truth, she had been hoping he would put up a fight to keep her.

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