§ CHAPTER SIXTEEN §
She was living in mortal sin.
All because she was, hungering after a two-bit cowboy. Nay, she was only trying to make less of the man, so as her future hurt would be less. Duke McClellan was more male than all the men she had ever taken on, and that included Nazi doctors.
Spring cleaning had rolled around, and Romy tackled the grime and dirt, a task which was not normally a prerequisite for her housekeeping standards.
Keeping the house clean was a constant battle against the dust and sand that spring winds swept determinedly beneath doors and window sills. Once again, she requisitioned Bud’s tennis racquet to attack the dirt and dried mud that had burred into the parlor’s braided rug since last fall. Beating out the dirt was also an excellent method of beating out her frustration.
It was not like she didn’t have other options. According to Gideon, if she pursued a career in the music field, the world could be her oyster. But she hadn’t won the grand prize of a performance at the Millet Opera House.
Reflecting on this, she swatted the rug time and again, her face turned from the flurrying dust. She reminded herself, or, perhaps, rationalized, that a famous flamenco guitar player would be a repeat of what she had been – that of an organ-grinder’s monkey, only performing on a more majestic scale.
Blimey, she could always tell fortunes, if worse came to worst.
Nay, what she wanted was . . . she wanted to watch the gloaming through Ireland’s magical mist, surrounded by Eire’s blinding green. She wanted peace of heart . . . and a grand love affair. Not settling as a runner up.
She wanted a family . . . and children. All of which would never be, could never be, hers.
It was not in her cards.
Sure and begorra, she might be able to use her intuition and common sense when reading the cards for others, but whatever gods may be had not granted those gifts for her own personal use. They must have considered it would be giving her an unfair advantage.
Still . . . why did the Emperor, the Magician, and the High Priestess continue to turn up in their various interpretations in her own card layouts? Was it truly possible the cards, the spirits, were trying to tell her something?
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.
Damn, she would miss seeing those low-slung Levi’s molding his fine arse.
Now she knew why people closed their eyes when they prayed or dreamed or danced or kissed – or cried. Helen Keller was right, life’s most impactful moments were not to be seen by the eyes but felt by the heart.
Well, her gypsy heart knew when to travel on.
§ § §
Duke paused at the kitchen doorway. The room was edging up in temperature, what with the Fourth of July’s morning heat and all the cooking. But the heat didn’t seem to bother the ranch hands none. They were fooling around and laughing like they were a part of one big happy family.
Even though they had the day off, Romy had commandeered them and put them – all but Arturo – to work around the long table. Dicing, chopping, slicing. Chili peppers, onions, garlic, and cilantro turned the warm air pungent.
Arturo, Duke suspected, was riding herd on Sally. Their attraction had been obvious to him, the way they had determinedly avoided looking at each other at Christmas, the way she joined in singing Christmas carols with Arturo. And since then, she had not come around as much – and Arturo was gone more often on his off time.
But it was not that couple that chapped Duke but Bud and Romy – the way the tenderfoot was joking with her. Bud was coming into his own heat, and her provocative presence most likely had the lusting kid’s imagination busy day and night – justifying Duke’s original concern about hiring someone as young and fetching as she. A mere six years separated Bud and Romy.
While a good nine years separated himself and her. She was a mere child, a reckless child, and yet his self-admonishment did not assuage his own lusting. Well, he had to let her go . . . and just maybe, if he was lucky, with her going would go his lusting.
She was brushing lumps of dough with sugar – scones or something Irish like that – for the Fourth of July lunch, an idea that she had drummed up the same day he had presented her with the Grand Ole Opry letter.
“The boys will enjoy the celebration,” she had said, and we’ll invite Gideon – and Miriam. He can help me with the Opry contract.”
He had shrugged. So, she was going. “A good way to kill two birds with – ”
“ – one scone,” she had chimed in with her irresistible elfish grin. “We’ll have Irish scones for your American Fourth. And we’ll invite Sally and her father. And Charlotte and Clara, too.”
Without a mother around in his preteen years, he had no idea what females wrangled with inside their heads. And his father had come up mighty short in the tender endearments and affections department toward the fairer sex.
Duke knew he could certain sure get along without Romy, but he would miss her antics, both the amusing ones and, damn-it-to-hell, the annoying ones, as well. What a corker she was. A rare breed.
And then there was the delectable shallows of her spine the tongue could lap. And her lovely white throat his fingers could stroke. And the lovely indentation between her . . . .
He shook his head, trying to free himself of breath-catching and heart-tripping memories. Yeah, it was better all-around that she snap up that contract with Grand Ole Opry. Better for her, better for his ranch hands, better for his piece of mind.
Peace of mind? Hell, what about the containment of his out-of-control feelings, both his raging testosterone and this terrifying yearning,
Besides, he needed to get on with his wife search. Somehow, Romy Sonnenschein had waylaid him. Her and her loony card reading.
“Bud,” he told the peach-fuzzed kid, “ride out and make sure that new front gate is open for the guests.” That should get the kid off her flagging tail for the time being, at least.
“And while you’re at it,” Jock catcalled, “bring us each back a bottle of Lone Star.”
The randy youth stopped just short of rolling his eyes. Grabbing his cap on the wall peg, he yanked it low on his head and stalked out the kitchen’s back door.
She turned amused eyes up at Duke.
“You should know,” he told her, ignoring her accusatory look, “that Johnson is in the area – Fourth of July stumping with his constituents. He plans to stop by with his staff sometime later this afternoon.”
He nodded at the large bowl of seasoned German potato salad that Micah was garnishing with a flourish of cilantro and bacon crumbles. Burnt bacon crumbles. “You might want to double up on your dishes,” he advised her.
She lowered her voice, obviously aware of the other men listening. As he was aware they had become her knight protectors. “Ye might have forewarned me, Duke.” She flicked perspiration-damp tendrils from her neck, and he was pleased that she no longer wore that constraining kerchief, as if she would bow to his desires . . . as if.
“I would have thought you would have already known,” he said, hammering out with difficulty a smile, “given that forewarnings are part and parcel of your wondrous fortune telling talents.”
What made him say something mean-spirited like that? And he knew. That was the way his old man would have handled disappointments. Disappointments? Hell, why not admit her leaving was a crushing blow?
Romy deserved a grand send off, even if she wasn’t skedaddling for another three weeks. Those twenty-one days would be easy enough, what with the backbreaking load of ranch duties that consumed his time. But the nights . . . God forbid he should be as callow and pining as Bud.
With her attention turned back to the kettle’s simmering pinto beans, he swiped a scone. At once, she struck his knuckles with her wooden spoon.
“Ouch!” He gave her a repentant smile that he hoped made up for his spiteful words. He nodded at the bean broth, then at the four ranch hands, still watching Romy and himself with surreptitious and suspicious interest. “If you don’t already know, Sunshine, too many cooks spoil the broth.”
“I know that too many cocks spoil the brothel, if that’s what ye mean.”
Thank God, she wasn’t the kind of gal to pout or stew.
She flashed him one of her stock-in-trade impish grins. “Now be off with yuirselves, all of ye galutes.”
Soon, she would be off with her own self, and, freed at last of her meddling, he could get on with his life, right?