One Ticket To Texas

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“No. Yes.” Kyle dropped his hat on his knee and ran his fingers through his hair. “Hell, I don’t know. But I wouldn’t want to fall for a gold digger. For the moment I’d just as soon that she not know that you’re wealthy or that I’m wealthy or—”

“Or that you’re a plastic surgeon.”

“Right. Or that Jackson is your grandson and my cousin.”

“Why is that?”

Kyle grinned. “Because I’m going to see if I can stall Jackson and that bunch of his in Dallas for an extra day or two. I don’t want Irish tempted by all those men and all that money until I can get a toehold in her affections.”

“Won’t she suspect something if she sees the oil wells on the property?”

“If she mentions it, I’ll tell her that they belong to Jackson or somebody. She won’t have any way of knowing that the land is yours. Will you play along with me?”

“My lips are sealed. As far as I’m concerned, you’re nothing but a shiftless bum, and I’m one step away from food stamps.”

“You don’t have to go quite that far.”

Cherokee Pete’s eyes twinkled. “I do believe you’ve taken quite a liking to our Irish already for you to go to so much trouble.”

“I’ll admit that she intrigues me.”

Pete cackled. “Intrigues, hell. She’s got your juices pumping. I ain’t so old I can’t remember. Check that roast you put in the oven, then go on down there and get to courtin’.”

Kyle decided to do just that.

He and Irish spent the rest of the afternoon in the store, waiting on the occasional customer and talking about everything from favorite colors to politics. They found that, despite a difference in their backgrounds and the fact that he liked blue to her green, they had a lot in common. In fact, after gazing for a spell into those lovely emerald green eyes of hers, he was beginning to change his mind about blue. Green was enchanting.

At dinnertime, They went upstairs and Kyle checked the roast that he had prepared earlier under Pete’s tutelage. He poked the meat with a fork, then poked the carrots, onions and potatoes. “That looks done to me. Does it look done to you?”

“I’m no expert, but it seems to be.”

“We’ll declare it done. Want a salad?”

“Sure,” she said. “I can make salad.”

They both pitched in to chop the vegetables, and Irish prepared a tray for Pete. While she took the tray to his grandfather, Kyle set the kitchen table for them. He started to put a candle in the middle, then decided that was pushing it a bit. He dug around until he found a cheap jug of burgundy and an expensive bottle of chardonnay. He put the chardonnay in the refrigerator and unscrewed the cap on the burgundy.

Irish returned as he was taking glasses from the cabinet. The Baccarat crystal stems that Kyle had given his grandfather on his last birthday were next to the jelly glasses. Kyle smiled, shook his head and poured a little from the jug to taste.

“Not bad for the price,” Kyle said. “Grandpa Pete isn’t much of a wine connoisseur. Will this do?”

“Sure. I’m not too fussy myself. Truthfully, some of the stuff that’s supposed to be so fine tastes like medicine to me.”

After dinner they cleaned up the kitchen together and got Pete settled down watching a John Wayne movie on cable.

“I guess that I’d better mosey on back to my tepee,” Irish said, smiling. “Thanks for dinner.”

“My pleasure. Want to take a walk first?”

“Sure.”

Outside the evening was still pleasantly warm, even though it was October. The air carried the crisp smell of pine trees and the watermelon scent of fresh cut grass. In the gathering darkness, crickets and tree frogs tuned up. Irish had noticed earlier that everything was still green; even the hardwood trees mixed in with the pines showed no signs of fall. She commented that the weather surprised her. “When does it get cool here? When do the leaves change?”

“Depends on what you call cool. Brief fronts begin pushing through beginning about now. The temperature will drop a few degrees, then warm up again in a day or two. We rarely get a frost before November, sometimes later than that. The leaves start turning about then, too, but because of the weather and because we have so many pines, autumn here is nothing like New England. A few trees are colorful—sweet- gums, tallows, some elms and oaks. Most of the others that lose their leaves stay green until frost, then turn brown and shed in November or December. By March they’re leafing out again.”

Because of darkness outside the range of the tall vapor lights, they didn’t wander far from the trading post and their walk was more amble than exercise.

As they strolled by the shed, Irish said, “I see that you’ve started a new bear.” She stepped inside where the strong odor of fresh sawdust and wood shavings scented the air. She rubbed her thumbs over the roughcut ears of the bear that stood as tall as she. “I felt so terrible about making you ruin the other one that I was relieved when Corrie bought it.”

“Nothing for you to feel terrible about. It was an accident.”

“Is this what you did in California, carve bears?”

“No. I, uh, did a different kind of sculpting.”

“What kind? Clay?”

Kyle gave her a vague answer, and she gathered that he wasn’t comfortable talking about his time on the West Coast. She could understand that; she wasn’t too comfortable talking about the last couple of years she spent in New York.

He ducked and entered the shed to stand beside her. The space suddenly became smaller, the raw wood smell more pungent. One of his thumbs traced a path over the bear’s ear, a path that was parallel to the course her thumb took and only a millimeter away from touching hers.

The space grew smaller still. His scent mingled with the woody aroma and his closeness bombarded her senses until his presence loomed larger than life and seemed to crackle and glow in her awareness.

Jerking her thumb back, she tried to step away from him, but she bumped against the bear’s outstretched paw. Finding herself penned between the bear’s paws and Kyle, she glanced up, her mouth open to deliver a clever quip.

The words vanished from her mind.

He hesitated for a moment, then slowly his head lowered. “May I kiss you?” he asked as his lips came closer and closer. They stopped when they were a hairsbreadth from hers.

Her heart began racing, and his breath against her skin sent tingles of excitement over her. A part of her wanted to shout, “Yes!” Another part wanted to smack him for putting her in such a bind and growl, “No!”

But she was mute. Neither word would form on her lips.

For an eon, they stood there. The air around them hummed with sensual awareness.

Her knees twitched.

Her ears roared.

Don’t do this, a rational part of her brain whispered.

Get lost, her libido replied.

Yes was winning.

She moistened her lips and was about to close the tiny gap when a loud pistol shot cracked the quiet.

Four

Just after dawn the ruckus started. A horn blared outside Irish’s door and something bashed into her wall hard enough to rattle the pictures.

“What the—” She sat straight up in bed. Another horn blasted through the fog in her brain, and she heard loud voices and car doors slamming.

Throwing back the covers, she hurried to the window and peeked out. It looked as if the gypsies had invaded while she slept. Tents were everywhere. Tents and blue canopies and long tables under trees. There must have been thirty or more trucks and cars with trailers scattered around outside the trading post. People were unloading all sorts of stuff from furniture to vegetables.

A wooden trailer that advertised snow cones, popcorn and cotton candy for sale was butted up against her tepee, and a man was waving his arms and shouting, trying to direct the driver of the pickup pulling it.

The trailer pulled forward, then backed up again. Whomp! It slammed against the side of the tepee.

Irish rushed to the door, shoved aside the chest she’d dragged across it to block the way, turned the lock and threw the bolt. “What are you doing?” she yelled. “Trying to demolish the place while I sleep?”

The florid-faced fellow doing the directing stopped waving and gawked at her. Then he swept off his cowboy hat and dropped his eyes. “Sorry, ma’am. Jason can’t quite get the hang of it.”

“Get the hang of what?”

“Parkin’ the stand in the right place.”

The truck door opened and a dejected carrot-topped boy, who couldn’t have been more than fourteen, climbed out. “I can’t do it, Daddy.”

“Well, you’re gonna have to. Your mama ain’t here to do it.”

“But, Daddy—”

“Shut your mouth and get back in that truck before I take a strap to you.”

“Over my dead body!” Irish stormed. She strode to the truck. “Where do you want this thing?”

When the man described the placement he was after, Irish said, “Get in, Jason. I’ll help you.”

Jason, his eyes as big as saucers, got in the truck. Irish climbed on the running board and very quietly directed the boy until they slowly maneuvered the stand into place.

“There you go,” she said. “Perfect.”

A wide grin spread over the boy’s face.

When she stepped off the running board, she realized that all the activity nearby had stopped and people were staring. That’s when it dawned on her that she was barefoot and wearing only a satin sleep-shirt. A very revealing satin sleep-shirt.

Irish didn’t let it phase her. She’d posed for catalogue ads with less on. Nose in the air, she marched into her tepee and slammed the door.

She looked at the clock and groaned. Who got up at such an ungodly hour? Wanting nothing so much as to climb back between the sheets, she conceded that trying to get any more sleep was a lost cause and headed for the shower. She hadn’t slept worth a darn. Even though the bed was comfortable, she’d tossed and turned for hours before she’d finally drifted off.

Kyle Rutledge had been the cause of her restless night. She couldn’t believe that she had allowed him to get under her skin so. If old Pete hadn’t fired his pistol at the right time, in another moment she and Kyle would have been locked in a steamy kiss—and God knows what else might have happened.

She found Kyle much too appealing, and he wasn’t the kind of man that she was interested in, she kept telling herself. He was poor; she wanted rich. If she had any other options, she would leave this place and remove herself from temptation.

Because Kyle Rutledge was very, very tempting.

But, with her financial situation, she had no other options.

She dressed quickly in jeans and an old favorite jersey, took her time with her ritual makeup job and went in search of breakfast.

If the outside looked like an anthill, inside the trading post was even more chaotic. Both tables were full with people drinking coffee and eating rolls and doughnuts, and about a dozen others milled around the store. Kyle stood behind the counter looking harried.

Irish joined him. “You look as if you could use some help.”

“You bet I could. I forgot that this was third Saturday. It’s trading day—a big deal around here. People come from miles away to buy, sell, or swap.”

“What can I do?”

“Make another pot of coffee, help customers, mind the register, cut up a dozen chickens—”