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  Frankie reached under the counter and brought out a quart mason jar filled with an amber-colored liquid. Then he set three glasses on the bar and put a double shot in each. “Sip it. Don’t throw it back. It’s made to enjoy.”

  The door opened and a couple of women wearing short skintight skirts, high heels, and crop tops plopped up on bar stools. One of them winked at Deke and he smiled at her.

  “How you doin’, Prissy?” he asked.

  “Right fine, darlin’. You?”

  “Real good. You workin’ or playin’?”

  “Workin’ tonight. You want to book some time?”

  He held up his glass. “Naw, I’m just here for supper and some peach pie.”

  “Good stuff.” She smiled, showing off a gold eyetooth. “How about your buddy?”

  Deke shook his head.

  “Y’all change your mind, I got room three booked and Lacy here has paid for room four.”

  It wasn’t the bite of the peach moonshine that made Allie gasp but the fact that Deke had brought her to a whorehouse as well as an illegal bar. Lord, if the gossip hounds ever got a hold of that bit of news, she and Blake both would be ruined for life. And Blake didn’t act like any of it fazed him one bit!

  Lacy’s butt looked like it was going to pop out of that skirt when she went from the bar to the jukebox and plugged several quarters into it. Then she and Prissy started doing a seductive dance as Etta James’s soulful voice singing “At Last” filled the whole room.

  Allie’s eyes must’ve been the size of saucers because Deke poked her on the arm.

  “I told you that it ain’t a country bar,” he said softly.

  “I kind of gathered that,” Allie said.

  Blake held out a hand. “May I have this dance?”

  “What about our food?” she asked.

  “Deke won’t let anyone get it.”

  Deke nudged her with his shoulder. “Go on. Have some fun.”

  She slid off the stool and Blake picked up her hands and wrapped them around his neck. His arms rested loosely around her waist as he began to move slowly and smoothly around the dance floor. The lyrics of the song said that he smiled and the spell was cast. God help her, but truer words had never been spoken.

  Instead of taking her back to the bar he kept dancing when the first chords of guitar music started an old blues song, “Ain’t No Sunshine.”

  “Do you listen to this music?” she asked.

  “No, but my grandpa loves rhythm and blues so I’m no stranger to it,” he answered.

  The third song was something fast and furious with lots of horn music in the background. Blake mixed swing dancing with something that she’d never seen or done before. It took all her concentration to keep up with him, and when the song ended she was breathless.

  “Time for a sip of peach pie?” Blake asked.

  * * *

  This whole business of settling down might not be so tough after all. He could withstand the temptations of the local women if he could have some time at Frankie’s occasionally. Allie had said she wasn’t interested in any kind of relationship, so they could have good times with no strings attached. By spring he might be completely weaned away from his wild cowboy ways.

  When they’d finished their ribs and shots, the bar was full of people. They moved from their stools to dance in the corner where Deke ordered a round of beers. Prissy hugged up to a cowboy and pretty soon they disappeared back behind a beaded curtain as “When a Man Loves a Woman,” played on the jukebox.

  “You like this place?” Allie asked.

  Blake leaned close to her ear so she could hear him. “It’s different for sure and beats unpacking boxes. What about you?”

  “I’m glad I’m not here alone.” She smiled. “Is that Etta James again?”

  Blake nodded. “She’s singing ‘Damn Your Eyes.’ Anyone ever tell you that you’ve got gorgeous eyes?”

  “Not lately and certainly not anyone I would believe.”

  “Something’s Got a Hold on Me,” another Etta James tune, started as soon as the first one ended. Blake hugged Allie tightly to his chest and moved slowly around the floor.

  “Do I have a hold on you?” she asked.

  “Oh, honey, you don’t have a clue,” he teased.

  The music stopped and she hurried to the jukebox. She bent over it to see the song titles better and there was that cute little denim-covered butt just tempting him. His mouth went dry and his pulse jacked up a few notches. He laced his fingers together on top of the table to keep from taking a few steps forward and cupping her fine ass in his hands.

  He would not seduce Allie. Not even if he could already feel her body next to his, under him, working with him, and satisfying the ache behind his zipper. He was trying hard to make her his friend and that did not include benefits. She was an important part of his strategy to get past his wild reputation. He really, really needed for the folks in Dry Creek to see him as a responsible rancher, not a bar-hopping cowboy with nothing but a good time on his mind. No one in Muenster would take him seriously, and that had always bothered him.

  The jukebox spit out “Lean on Me.” Was she telling him something? She returned to her chair and smiled. “I remember some of these songs from when I was…” She clamped a hand over her mouth. “Granny had some of these on vinyl. I wonder if she was ever here?”

  Blake smiled. “Darlin’, your granny has lots of secrets.”

  At midnight Deke handed Allie the keys to his truck and said, “Place closes at two. Frankie says y’all can stay long as you want. Leave the keys on the front seat, Blake. I’ve got a lady who says she can make a mean breakfast come daylight.” He grinned and disappeared in a fog of smoke.

  “One more dance?” Blake asked.

  Allie stood up and moved out to the middle of the empty floor as Sam Cooke sang “Bring It on Home to Me.” She wrapped her arms around Blake’s neck and smiled up at him. “It’s not hard to imagine my granny in her best dress out here on this very floor dancin’ with my grandpa to this song.”

  “Who says she came here with your grandpa? Maybe it was with Walter,” he teased.

  “I don’t want to think about that.” She leaned back and looked up at him.

  She’d said no more kisses but those dark brown eyes mesmerized him. He tipped up her chin and whispered, “Then let’s think about this.”

  His lips closed over hers and his arms pulled her tighter against his chest, his tongue finding its way inside her mouth, tasting the peach pie moonshine. Finally, she put her hands on his chest and pushed.

  “Blake, I told you about that,” she said.

  Her tone wasn’t very convincing so he brushed another kiss across her lips. “I was just seeing if the peach pie tasted better on your lips than it did straight from the glass.”

  “Have you always been a charmer?” she asked with a smile.

  “I can’t help it when I’m around you. You don’t have any idea how beautiful you are or how you affect a man, do you, darlin’?”

  “On that note, I think it’s time for you to take me home.” She blushed, shrugged, and threw up her palms all at once. It was so damn cute he wanted to kiss her again. “I mean, take me to my home, so don’t look at me like that.”

  The dance ended and he led her out to the truck. He wished the whole way back through the rutted road and to the county road leading home that she was sitting as close to him as she had been on the way to Frankie’s, and cussing himself for wanting her for more than a friend.

  Chapter Nine

  Blake opened the door before she even knocked that Saturday afternoon. “Come right in out of the cold. Man, I’m glad y’all got the roof done. I believe the weatherman just might be right and we’ll get that six inches of snow on Sunday.”

  “I won’t take long. Just a few measurements and then I’ve got to get to Wichita Falls for supplies before the weather hits.” She pulled a steel tape measure from one of the pockets on her cargo pants and headed down t
he hall.

  Deke pushed in the back door without knocking and yelled. “Hey, Blake, do you mind if I use your chainsaw sharpener?”

  “You sure can. I didn’t think you’d be around today after last night.”

  “I’m energized and ready to work,” Deke said. “I’m filling my travel mug with coffee. Once that snow gets here, the wood-cuttin’ business will have to wait.”

  “Sharpener is in the barn,” Blake said. “There’s spaghetti sauce made from venison simmering in the slow cooker. One of the ladies brought it by when they delivered all that food. We’ll have it for supper tonight? Y’all want to join me?”

  “Sure, maybe we’ll go back to Frankie’s,” Deke yelled, and the back door slammed.

  “How about you?”

  “How about me what?” Allie asked.

  “You got a problem with venison?”

  It was on the tip of her tongue to say that she’d eat anything he served but she’d prefer to do it in bed, after sex, and before the next round of sex. But she bit her lip and shook her head. “No, I don’t mind it at all. Daddy hunted every year so I was raised on wild game. I also like fried rabbit and frog legs, but I don’t like squirrel fixed any way. It’s just a rat with a fluffy tail to me.”

  She took a step, tangled her foot on a wrinkle in the carpet, and plunged forward into his arms. “I’m so sorry,” she stammered. “Okay, which room first?”

  “My bedroom and excuse the mess. I’m still not unpacked.”

  “I’m not here to judge your housekeeping, Blake.” She set about measuring the room and then pulled a notepad from her pocket to write down the measurements. “Color? And will it be for the whole house or different for every room?”

  “What would you do if this was the bedroom you’d be sleeping in the rest of your life?” he asked.

  Lord, have mercy! That question put a visual in her mind that practically made her pant. “Something neutral, like a soft ivory or maybe a really light tan with white trim and doors. It would lighten up the place. Whoever painted it this god-awful shade of pink should be shot. It’s evident that the room has always been the master bedroom. No one paints a room where a man is going to sleep this color.” No wonder she was talking so fast and furious.

  Blake chuckled. “So you aren’t into pink walls and lacy curtains?”

  She thought carefully before she answered so she wouldn’t go off on another tangent. “You should be able to tell that by looking at me. Pink and lace were my youngest sister’s things. I was always the girl who’d rather be running around behind Daddy and playing in the sawdust.”

  Something about that king-size bed with the tangled gold sheets set her hormones into overdrive. Thank God she had a notepad because she couldn’t remember a single, solitary number she’d written down on it. She did recall something about sand-colored paint with white woodwork but to be on the safe side, she probably needed to note that, too.

  What was wrong with her? Hell, she couldn’t even hang on to Riley and he wasn’t a tenth as sexy as Blake. Deke appeared in the doorway and pointed toward the ceiling.

  “Every joint has been affected by the leaks. Hall looks to be four feet wide and twenty feet long, so you’ll need five sheets for the hall. Write that down. Living room is a twenty-foot square so figure that many sheets. I ran back by to say we can’t go to Frankie’s tonight. I promised my cousin and his wife I’d go to dinner with them.”

  She wrote down the numbers. “Thanks, Deke.”

  “Y’all decided what to do with the floors?” Deke asked.

  Blake shrugged and looked at Allie. “What do you suggest we do with this ratty old carpet?”

  Deke went to a corner and pulled up a corner. “Looks like oak hardwood under it. I’d pull the shit up and throw it out. Wood floors are easier to clean. I pulled it all out of my house a couple of years ago and ain’t regretted it one time.”

  “Want me to rip it all up after I get through painting? If you do, then I won’t have to cover the flooring to keep from getting paint on it,” Allie said.

  “That sounds good,” Blake said. “How long do you think the whole job will take?”

  “About a week if you will help me get the drywall up on the ceiling. Trim work takes longer because it’s tedious, and the doors will have to be sanded. But I’d say a week for each room.”

  “So roughly a month unless you have to take a day now and then to help take care of Miz Irene?” he asked.

  “That’s right.” She bit her tongue to keep from spitting out a monologue about woodwork, floors, carpet, and anything else to keep her mind off those sheets.

  “Either of y’all want a cup of hot chocolate or coffee to warm your bones before you go back out in the cold?” Blake asked.

  “Not me,” Deke said. “I’m outta here. Got wood to get cut and ready to sell while the sun shines. Can’t do much in that area if it’s bad weather next week.”

  His boots didn’t make a noise until he hit the kitchen floor, and then she heard the back door slam again. She tucked the notepad and tape back in her pocket. “I’ll pass. I don’t want to get caught in a rain storm with drywall on the trailer.”

  He raised his arms over his head and stretched, working the kinks out of his back by bending to each side. Allie’s eyes were glued to that broad chest and the way his biceps stretched the arms of the T-shirt. How long would it take her to strip that thing up over his head? How would it feel to bury her face on his chest while afterglow settled around them?

  Afterglow is not real! You know that, Allie Logan. It’s something that romance authors made up to make all women think there is something wonderful out there. Kind of like sex that lasts all night and isn’t over in ten minutes with the man snoring on his side of the bed.

  “What about fish?” he asked.

  “What are you talking about?” Had she been so lost in her argument with herself or in the pictures she’d conjured up in her mind of him half-naked that she missed something about going fishing?

  “You said you don’t like squirrel. Do you eat fish?” he asked.

  She nodded. “Any kind long as it’s cooked. I’m like Granny when it comes to sushi.”

  “And that is?” He smiled.

  She stood up and took a couple of steps toward the door. “Raw fish is called bait in our world.”

  Blake followed her. “Alora Raine? Where’d you get that name?”

  “Is this twenty questions or something?” she asked.

  He leaned a shoulder against the wall beside the coatrack. “It could be. I was trying to get you to stay longer.”

  “We’ll have to play that game another time. I’ll see you later. App weather forecast on my phone says no bad weather until tomorrow, so my stuff will be all right on the trailer until after church. I’ll cover it with a tarp.” There she went talking too much again.

  Her arm brushed against his when she reached around him and picked her coat off the rack. The scent of his cologne mixed with a manly soap filled her nostrils every time she inhaled.

  “Do you miss your family?” she asked as she slipped her arms into her coat and buttoned it up the front. One more layer of protection, not against him but herself.

  “More than I thought I would. We went to my grandparents’ house every Sunday for dinner after church.” He straightened her collar. “Cousins fought. Men sat on the porch with a beer and talked crops and cattle. Women gathered in the kitchen to talk about girl things. I wasn’t interested in the kitchen, but I learned to love ranchin’ out there listenin’ to those old men talk about cows and hay and spring plantin’.”

  The warmth of his fingertips on her neck sent electricity bouncing all around her. Did he feel it, too, or was it just her?

  “But you did learn to cook,” she said.

  Blake stepped back. “Only because I had to. Most of my expertise starts with a big stew pot. I can’t fry chicken worth a damn and it’s my favorite food. Deke says you hate to cook. Was he teasing?”
/>   She slowly shook her head. “He was telling the truth. I hate to cook but that doesn’t mean I can’t cook. I can fry chicken that will melt in your mouth.”

  “Biscuits?” His eyes twinkled.

  She nodded.

  “Gravy? The good stuff with no lumps?” A grin tickled his sexier-than-the-devil mouth.

  Another nod.

  “Will you marry me?” he asked bluntly.

  Had he seriously just proposed? “I might fry chicken for you to celebrate when we finish this house, but I’m never getting married again.”

  “I don’t take rejection well.” He laid a fist over his heart and dropped his head in a fake pout.

  Allie took another step toward the door. “Sorry about that, cowboy. You’ll have to get over it.”

  He sighed. “Will you attend my funeral on Sunday? I promised my brother, Toby, if I ever found a woman who could fry chicken like my mama, I would ask her to marry me. It’s going to kill me to tell him that the woman of my dreams has turned me down.”

  “You’re full of horse shit.” She laughed.

  Allie deliberately stayed out late that evening, hoping to avoid Mitch and Grady. The Friday-night date with her sister and the two guys had been postponed at the last minute until tonight, so she didn’t want to go home until she absolutely had to.

  Instead, she decided a little retail therapy at the mall might be in order until she was sure they’d be out of the house. She meandered through three stores and bought a new pair of skinny jeans, a beautiful dark green sweater dress, and two shirts. Then she grabbed dinner on her own, wishing the whole time that Deke and Blake were sitting with her at the table.

  It was a little after eight when she made it to Dry Creek and saw Mitch’s truck right there in the driveway. Damn! She slapped the steering wheel but the truck did not disappear.

  She tiptoed across the porch and eased the front door open, then closed it behind her so carefully that it didn’t make a bit of noise. She didn’t realize she was holding her breath until she reached the landing and it came out in a loud whoosh. Quickly peeking over the banister to make sure they hadn’t heard her, she sucked in another lung full of air and hurried into her room. Without turning on the light, she slid down the backside of the door and wrapped her arms around her knees.