***
I looked in the mirror for the fourth time in fifteen minutes and walked away from it as fast as I could so that none of my family would catch me.
"I don’t understand why you needed to invite her to dinner," I said to Mama as she passed through the dining room to put a platter on the table.
"She worked so hard for the last couple of days, and I think it’s good manners to have her over for supper."
"She's an employee, Mama, not a friend doing us a favor."
"I still can't believe you hired a girl," Luke said, and Mama shot him a glare.
"You bite your tongue. Girls these days can do anything that you boys can do and look pretty doing it. Besides, we all know how Teddy feels about her."
"That was about a thousand years ago, Mama. We haven't spoken in years, and it has nothing to do with her working here, and I don't want it to. I'm still hoping that her brother will get himself together and I can hire him."
"I heard Bailey has had a hard time with that girlfriend of his."
"Ex-girlfriend apparently. Seems she ran out on him."
"With Steven," Luke added.
It seemed the rumor mill had been churning, and I had missed out.
"Steven?" Mama said incredulously. "He drives a tractor."
I nodded slowly. "Evidently that does not have the impact that I would have thought."
"Regardless, it doesn't seem right that the two of you were in love for so long and you haven’t even fixed things. You know she only comes around to see you. Her grandmother and I have known it for years.”
It was the type of rambling logic to which I was accustomed. We were a couple, then we weren't. She works a few days on the ranch. She obviously is entitled to pot roast.
The doorbell rang and my stomach constricted a little. The truth was, I wasn't arguing about Lauralee coming over for supper because I thought it was strange. It was more that I didn't know how I would react to having her in the house with me without work to distract me. I couldn't get her out of my mind, especially after that afternoon, right before Mama had invited her over.
I had gotten too warm while fixing one of the fences and taken off my shirt. I caught her eyes lingering on my chest a bit, and she started to unbutton the top buttons of her shirt. Over the last few days she seemed to have stopped wearing her big brother's clothes and instead, gone for shirts that grazed her waist just a bit and jeans that hugged her hips and showed off strong thighs I thought about grabbing onto every time I looked at her.
"You can't take your clothes off right here," I had teased her. She glared at me, and I smiled. "Oh, come on, don't try to look so offended. I know you want me."
She leaned toward me, and I caught just enough of a glimpse of her cleavage that my silly smile went away and my throat tightened up a touch.
"I in no way want you, Ted Dawson."
"Oh, really?" I managed, trying to keep up the teasing even though I could feel the tension building between us.
"Absolutely. There's nothing about you that I am at all interested in."
Now, as I walked toward the door to let her in, I could still feel the tingle in my fingertips and the strange mixture of disappointment and intrigue she had stirred inside me. I opened the door, and the breath came out of me sounding like I was a giant balloon at the end of a party. Lauralee gave me a strange look and stepped inside, giving me a chance to let my eyes travel along the dress that had replaced her jeans, the shoes that made her a couple inches taller, and all that thick coppery hair out of its cowboy hat prison and spilling around her shoulders and down her back.
She had put on makeup, and her eyes looked huge and bright against her pale skin. Do I look that different? I remembered her asking me when I first saw her the day before I hired her. Yes, yes you do, Lauralee, and I'm adding it to my prayers of thanks tonight.
I kept ahold of myself through the delightfully awkward part of the evening when we all stood around making uncomfortable small talk and not knowing where we should go or what to do with our hands. I controlled myself all throughout dinner as my brothers stared at her over the edges of their water glasses and my parents peppered her with questions that ranged from how many bulls she had castrated to what brand conditioner she used in what seemed like a game of "Jeopardy: The Ranch Edition from Hell."
It wasn't until Mama handed us bowls of fresh chopped peaches swimming in sweetened cream swirled with vanilla and shooed us out onto the front porch that I could feel my resolve starting to crack. She leaned against a support beam, the wind rippling through her hair and the moonlight dancing across her skin as she ate a few slow bites of her dessert. I could see my brothers still staring at her, and I had had enough. I needed to get her away from them and alone with me.
Putting my hand on the porch railing, I stood and looked at her.