Summertime on the Ranch, Carolyn Brown [ebook reader with highlighter txt] 📗

Listening to four old women drink wine and argue over gin rummy or go with Dalton? She chose the lesser of the two evils and smiled at him. “If you’ll give me five minutes to change into jeans, I’ll go drive for you.”

He nodded. “Take ten, and after we get the chores done, we’ll drive down to Bowie for some ice cream.”

Was ice cream a date? Becca wondered as she hurried to her bedroom and changed into jeans and a T-shirt. Would he expect more than a friendly handshake or a kiss on the cheek when he brought her home? Or worse yet, would she be disappointed if he didn’t kiss her good night? She ran a brush through her long hair and reapplied a little lipstick.

“It’s not a date,” she muttered as she headed down the hall.

Grammie was sitting in her recliner when she reached the living room. Both kittens were in her lap, and she was singing to them. She stopped when Becca entered the room and winked. “They’re good kit-tees. They both used the litter box and ate some of their special food, and now they’re sleeping. The girls are going to love them, but Dolly and George are going to love me more than anyone.”

“Why haven’t you gotten a pet before?” Dalton stood up and rolled the kinks out of his neck.

“I don’t know,” Greta answered. “I guess it’s because I had to leave my old mama cat behind with my best friend in Ireland when I moved to the States. I missed her real bad, but I felt like I would be dishonoring all the years she caught mice for me if I brought in another cat. But Tuff brought these to me, so in a way, it makes it all right.”

“I’m glad,” Dalton said. “I’ll tell him you said thank you.”

“And the next time I make a ham, I’ll save him the bone,” Greta said. “Now, you kids get on out of here. You’ve got chores to do and ice cream to buy. I won’t wait up for you, Becca.” She threw a sly wink her way.

“We won’t be that late,” Becca said. “I’ve got to be up early in the morning to get some more watermelons squeezed and ready to start into wine.”

“You could bring home a bottle of that so we can celebrate our new babies,” Greta suggested with a raised eyebrow.

“I’ll see what I can do.” Becca smiled.

“We could bring a bottle by on our way to Bowie for the ladies who are playing cards with you,” Dalton offered.

“You are such a sweetheart.” Greta flashed her brightest smile at him.

“You are spoiling her,” Becca whispered as they left the house.

“She spoiled me with a good dinner and a great nap. Do you realize that I haven’t even kissed you, and we already slept together?” he teased.

“We slept, as in close our eyes and snore. We did not have sex,” she told him.

“Don’t know about you, but we did in my dreams.” He chuckled as she opened the truck door for her.

She’d heard of hot flashes in older women, but Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, they couldn’t be as hot as the heat filling her body as she watched him strut around the front end of the truck. She might need enough ice cream to fill a bathtub just to cool down after the pictures his comment painted in her mind.

Chapter 4

To get to know someone really well, spend some time working beside them.

That’s what Grammie had told Becca more times than she could remember. Seeing Dalton’s gentle nature with the cattle as he fed them that evening just added to the feeling that she’d had when she watched him sleep with a kitten on his shoulder. He had a soft heart, and for crying out loud, he’d even named some of the bulls.

“Hey, that does it for this job.” He crawled into the passenger seat of the ranch work truck. “You about ready for ice cream?”

“What I’d rather have is a big, juicy bacon cheeseburger,” she answered.

“A woman after my own heart,” he grinned. “Got a particular place in mind?”

“Dairy Queen in Nocona,” she answered.

“Then drive us back to my truck, and we can be there in twenty minutes,” he told her.

“Fifteen if I drive.” She smiled.

“A cowboy always drives his lady wherever she wants to go,” he said.

“Oh, so I’m your lady?” She shifted the truck into reverse and turned it around in the pasture.

“You could be,” he answered.

“Why not your woman? Or your one-night stand? Or the redhead that you got lucky with?” she asked.

“A cowboy’s lady is so much more than any of those things you just said,” he answered.

“How so?” she asked.

“I respect all women. That’s the way I was raised, and it’s the cowboy code. But a cowboy’s lady goes way beyond plain old respect. She’s put on a pedestal,” he answered.

Put that in your corncob pipe and smoke it, Grammie’s voice popped into her head.

Becca ignored the comment and asked, “And how does a lady feel about her cowboy.”

“One hundred percent the same as he feels about her,” Dalton answered. “Just park right beside my truck, and we’ll make the switch and go to Nocona.”

Becca didn’t have a corncob pipe and she didn’t smoke, but she sure thought a lot about what he’d said. That was exactly the example she had seen in her grandparents, both maternal and paternal, and in her own parents.

She put the truck in park, turned off the engine, and was about to open the door when it swung open. Dalton held out his hand to help her out of the truck, and she slipped her hand into his outstretched one. Men had opened vehicle doors for her since her first date when she was sixteen, but in that moment, even though she was wearing jeans, she felt as if she had a crown on her head and was truly royalty. Not a