And where are you going?” Tag asked Emily on Thursday night when she picked up her tote bag and started out of the apartment. “You haven’t made us fried chicken yet, and we’d planned to stay in tonight with you. Next two nights are taken up with the livestock show, and we’re leaving bright and early Sunday morning.”
“I’ve got a date. If I’m not home by midnight, y’all can fight over which one gets to sleep in my bed. And there’s a KFC in town if you want chicken.” She waved as she walked out the door.
She could smell the steaks cooking as soon as she stepped out of her car. The grill was on the porch, but Justin was nowhere around. She tied the belt to her long black coat tighter around her waist and gingerly picked her way from vehicle to cabin in her red high heels. She rapped on the door and then opened it to find a blaze in the fireplace, candles lit on the table, and the bed turned down. Justin came out of the bathroom wearing nothing but a pair of loose-fitting pajama pants.
“Steaks are warming in the oven and everything else is ready.” His eyes scanned her from high heels to the top of her head.
She untied the belt and removed the coat letting it puddle up at her feet. His eyes popped out and a grin covered his face. She was wearing nothing but a bath towel that she’d fastened with a broach and the shoes he’d asked for.
“I thought we might have dessert first.” She unpinned the broach and the towel fell away. The absence of inhibitions felt wonderful, and the way Justin’s eyes went all dreamy said he liked her just the way she was.
“Wonderful idea.” He covered the distance in a couple of long strides and wrapped his arms around her. “Maybe we’ll even have two helpings of dessert first. God, I’ve missed you so much.”
His lips found hers as he walked her backward toward the bed. When they were close, she kicked off her shoes, and then slid his pants down over his hips. “Oh, my! You did miss me.” She stretched out on the bed.
“I’ll show you just how much.” He stretched out beside her.
It was almost ten when they finally got around to eating supper. The steaks might not have been as juicy as they were three hours before, but after the appetite they’d worked up, Justin and Emily had no problem eating them. Nor did they have a problem falling asleep in each other’s arms sometime around midnight.
Sunrays shone in through the window when Emily awoke to find Justin coming toward her with a cup of coffee and a box of breakfast pastries. She sat up in bed and pulled the sheet up over her breasts. He leaned in for a kiss and she turned her head to the side.
“A few sips of coffee first. Morning breath,” she said.
He kissed her on the cheek and handed her the mug. “Hurry. I’ve wanted to kiss you for half an hour but I didn’t want to wake you. Are you going to wear that towel and those shoes to work?”
She took a couple of sips of coffee and pulled his face to hers for the first kiss of the day. “My tote bag with my scrubs is in the car.”
“I’ll get it,” he drawled but he didn’t make a move to leave the bed.
When they absolutely had no time left if she was going to get to work on time, she got a quick shower and dressed, and he followed her to the center in his truck. When they got out of their vehicles, he tucked her hand into his, and just that simple touch created a whole array of sparks.
To take her mind off the mind-blowing sex of the night before, she asked, “Just exactly where is the Montague County fairground?”
“Just outside Nocona.” He opened the door for her. When they were halfway down the hall toward the activities room, he pulled her into an empty room and kissed her half a dozen times.
“What time will the Fab Five be home?” she asked breathlessly as she leaned in for more.
“It’ll be after supper, but there’s food vendors set up in the fairbarn kitchen, so don’t worry about them going hungry.” He strung kisses from under her chin to her lips.
If they didn’t stop making out right then, she was going to be late for work—something that had never happened in the five years she’d worked at the center. She pulled away and pulled a tissue from a box. “You better wipe the lipstick off or Otis and Larry will tease you all day.”
“I don’t mind tellin’ them how I got these pretty red smears on my lips.” He chuckled but wiped them away. “Tonight and tomorrow night will be hectic at the fair barn, but I’ll pick you up for church Sunday morning. Okay?”
She nodded. “And then we’ll go back to my place for dinner. I’ll cook, and we can spend the afternoon together. But I’ll see you tomorrow night at the premium show. Derek has plans with his family that night, so I’ll have to chauffer them back to the center.”
“It’ll be a long night for us.” He groaned. “But once it’s over and we get things cleaned up, it’s done for another year.”
“Then I guess waiting for you at the cabin—” she said.
He butted in before she could finish. “Will give me something to look forward to all evening. It might be very late.”
“Wake me when you get there.” One more quick kiss, and she went back out into the hallway.
“Today is the day!” Sarah called out from only a few feet away. “We’re goin’ to wait in the lobby. Come with us.”
Emily checked the time on her phone. “I’ve got maybe five minutes.”
Otis was almost prancing as he led the parade down the hallway. “Any minute now Justin is going—”
Larry pointed. “There he is, right behind Emily. Was you lookin’ for us, Justin?”
“Yes, I was. I thought maybe Derek could follow me to the fair barn.” Justin slid a sly wink at Emily.
“And there’s Derek, pulling the van around to the front,” Patsy said.
Otis pumped his fist in the air. “I hope they’ve got homemade chili in the kitchen. We used to get the best chili when I helped judge.”
“I think I heard there was going to be Indian tacos and chili both. If we leave now, you might have time to give the kids some last-minute pointers on how to show their animals,” Justin said.
“Have fun,” Emily told them and blew kisses as they left.
Justin grabbed one in the air and pretended to put it in his pocket. Emily quickly looked around to see if anyone else had seen it, and there was Nikki with a smile that covered her whole face.
“I saw that,” she singsonged. “You look like you’ve been makin’ out, so?”
“We’ll talk about it later. I’ve got five minutes to get everything out for scrapbook day,” she said.
“Yes, we will. Like tonight over the Friday night pizza buffet. My treat for getting me through the week, and I won’t take no for an answer,” Nikki said.
“Wasn’t about to say no. Meet you there at six? If my brothers weren’t at the livestock show, I’d introduce you.”
“Five thirty. We don’t have to change clothes. Too bad about your brothers. I remember Hudson was pretty damn fine-lookin’ and Tag was too sexy for words,” Nikki answered.
“Good lord!” Emily exclaimed when she turned her phone on after work and found dozens of messages and one missed call from her grandmother, Opal.
She checked the time: 5:10. That meant she had fifteen minutes before she had to make the five-minute drive to the pizza place. She’d look over the messages later, and being on a tight schedule would give her an excuse to only talk to her granny a few minutes. She was surprised when Opal answered on the first ring.
“Where are you, and why are you not answering your phone? I could be lyin’ in a ditch dying of massive wounds,” Opal fussed at her.
“I was at work. Mama has the center’s number for emergencies. I turned off my phone because it was pinging every five minutes with text messages, and that was interfering with my job,” she explained.
“You should be here on the ranch. That’s your job, Emily. I’ve let you spread your wings, but your mama is goin’ to want to retire before too many years. You need to be learnin’ all the fine points of runnin’ this place,” Opal told her.
“Granny, I’ve told you a dozen times, just get the papers ready for me to sign over my share to my brothers. They know everything there is to know about ranchin’. I don’t want it.” Emily leaned her head back and wished she wasn’t having this conversation.
“Listen to me.” Opal’s tone nearly put frost on the phone. “Matthew told us last night he won’t ask for a prenup. Good God Almighty! Do you realize what that could do to this empire that we’ve built here on Big Sky Ranch?”
“Why would he refuse to do that?” Emily’s temples started to ache.
“He says that he loves her too much to ask, and it would ruin the trust between them,” Opal answered. “He might listen to you, so you’ve got to come home and talk to him.”
“Can we talk about it next weekend when I come home for the family gathering?”
“If that’s the best you can do.” Opal sighed. “But one weekend won’t do the job. You need a few days.”
“I’ll see what I can do,” Emily said.
“That’s good,” Opal said. “Love you, girl.”
“Love you more,” she replied and the call ended.
Emily shoved the phone into her purse and drove straight to the pizza place where Nikki had already claimed a booth. She made a beeline toward it, plopped down, and laid her head on the table.
“What happened last night?” Nikki asked.
“You were right. The makeup sex was amazing.”
Nikki grinned. “I told you so. Girl, you’re knee-deep in quicksand and sinkin’ fast.”
“I know and I’m scared,” Emily said.
“Don’t be. Just dive right in and see where it goes. That’s what I intend to do. I gave my two-week notice today. My last day is March eighth,” Nikki said.
Tears welled up in Emily’s eyes and spilled down over her cheeks. “I’m going to miss you so much.”
Nikki handed her a paper napkin. “I’ll miss you too, but this means I get to do more than just pass out meds. On one of the evenings I’m off each week, we’ll have pizza or Chinese buffet and catch up. Agreed?”
Emily dried her eyes and nodded. “Absolutely. Now my story.” Between bites, she told Nikki everything she could remember, including the phone call she’d gotten that evening.
“Would you sign a prenup if things went that far with Justin?” Nikki asked.
“I’d insist on one. It’s just good sense when a piece of property the size of the Longhorn Canyon or the Big Sky ranches comes into the picture,” Emily answered.
“Did Retta or Claire sign one?”
Emily shrugged. “I have no idea, and I sure wouldn’t ask, but it’s entirely too soon to even think about that.”
The sight of the little red Mustang parked beside the cabin put a smile on Justin’s face and a little spring in his step on the way inside. He let himself in as quietly as possible and used his phone as a flashlight. Making his way to the bathroom, he noticed a white towel and the red shoes sitting on the coffee table.
After a quick shower, he dried off and was on his way to bed when Emily sat up in bed and rubbed her eyes. “Justin, is that you?”
“Yes, darlin’.” He slipped beneath the covers and wrapped her up in his arms.
“Tired?” She yawned.
“Exhausted.” He kissed her on the cheek.
“Me too. Just hold me tonight. We’ll make wild, passionate love in the morning.”
“You got it, darlin’,” he said and was instantly asleep.
The sun was shining brightly through the kitchen window when he opened his eyes the next morning. Emily was in the kitchen. She wore a pair of Minnie Mouse pajama pants and a T-shirt that testified to the fact that she wasn’t wearing a bra. Just looking at her making coffee aroused him.
She turned around and smiled. “Good mornin’. I think I remember you getting into bed with me. My brothers are having a fit for me to come home and cook at least one meal for them, so I’m going there pretty soon. I haven’t spent much time with them, so I owe them a couple of hours this morning.” She crossed the room and sat cross-legged in the middle of the bed.
He sat up and kissed her on the forehead. “You look worried. What’s the matter?”
She told him about the problem at the Big Sky Ranch with the prenup. “That’s probably more information than you need. If she really loves him, I don’t see what the big deal is with signing a prenup.”
“I can understand where Matthew is coming from. I’d never ask a woman I loved to sign one,” Justin said. “That’s like saying, ‘I love you but I don’t trust you.’ Neither Cade nor Levi asked Retta or Claire to do that.”
“We’ll have to agree to disagree on that.” Emily left the bed and went to the kitchen where she poured two mugs of coffee. “What do you want for breakfast? Cinnamon toast and bacon all right?”
“I want to talk some more first.” Justin took one of the cups from her hand. “Where is all this with us going, Emily? I’d never ask you to quit your job or to do anything that would change you. I think you’re perfect just the way you are. You can be whatever you want to be, work at whatever you want, or not work at all if sometime in the future you want to be a stay-at-home mama.”
“So you want children?” she asked.
“I do.” He nodded. “Lots of them. I’d like five or six, but would settle for at least two. I grew up with a sibling, but Levi didn’t. In a sense, we were all like brothers, but he’s always said that he missed not having a brother or a sister of his very own.”
“If you wanted all that why haven’t you been searching for ‘the one’?” She made air quotes around the last two words.
Another nod and then he took a sip of coffee. “I wasn’t ready until now. And I’m tellin’ you, when I settle down, I won’t need a prenup—but I’ll want children. What about you?”
She waited for a full minute before she spoke. “I would want a prenup, not for my protection but for yours. And I love children. I’d like to even work with them again someday.”
He took the coffee cup from her and set it on a bedside table beside his. “We don’t have to figure out our lives all the way to the day we meet our Maker at the Pearly Gates. I just need to know if we have some kind of future, because I’m beginning to do a hell of a lot more than just like you, Emily. I want to tell folks that we’re dating, that we’re in a relationship and—”
She leaned toward him, and kissed him. “You can stand on the rooftops and tell everyone that you want to. I’ll tell my family when I go home for the reunion.”
A month before, Emily would have declared a person insane if they said she’d be in a committed relationship in the next four weeks. But there they were, talking about the future, and even kids. She wanted to pinch herself to see if it was real.
Justin walked her to the door after she’d showered and got dressed. They shared a long good-bye kiss and she drove to her apartment. Her brothers were in the kitchen when she arrived. Hudson was frying bacon. Tag was making biscuits.
“We need to talk,” Hudson said.
“About?”
“It’s one thing if we don’t know a person you’re sleeping with. It’s another if we do and like him. What if he’s just using you, sis?” Tag asked.
“In other words, we’re worried about you. We want you to be happy but we want assurances that you’re bein’ treated right,” Hudson added.
“I’m a big girl. I can take care of myself. Justin and I are in a relationship and I don’t want it jinxed by a couple of brothers who butt in where they don’t belong. Now move over and I’ll fry the eggs,” she said.