“They miss Haskell. I’m glad you let them in the house.”
“Hooter was howling like he was dyin’. I opened the door to see what was going on, and they both came in,” she said. Should she sit in the other recliner or the sofa? She finally crossed in front of him and claimed the other chair.
“They’re good animals. Blister has a litter box in the utility room off the kitchen. The litter is in the cabinet beside the washer and dryer. Hooter would explode before he’d make a mess, so there’s nothing to worry about them bein’ inside. Haskell said they were good company, and that Hooter knew all his secrets. He told me that he was glad the dog couldn’t talk.”
Liz smiled. “Too bad. He could tell me stories about my uncle, I’m sure.”
“Yep, he could.” Raylen grinned.
When he smiled, she remembered that crazy feeling in her chest when they were teenagers. He had smiled at her over the fence and her heart had done a couple of flip-flops.
Liz inhaled deeply to ease the antsy feeling in her gut, but it didn’t help. All she got was a lung full of Raylen’s shaving lotion. The man had cleaned up in the last couple of hours. His boots were spit- shined, his dark hair still glistened from a shower, and his Wranglers were starched and creased. He looked like sin on a stick when he was all sweaty and dirty—but cleaned up, he made her mouth go dry.
“So you are Uncle Haskell’s nearest neighbor, now mine I guess, right?” she asked.
He pointed toward the fireplace. “Less than a mile as the crow flies, straight that way. Haskell’s house and ours is probably set on a plumb line, but to drive there, you have to drive down your lane to the highway, hang a left, drive a mile, turn left down the lane, and then back to our ranch. But I jumped the fences and walked over tonight. Needed the exercise after Mama’s supper.”
I would shoot you between the eyes if you called me Mama. When I get a husband, even when I have kids, he’s not calling me Mama, she thought.
“How many fences?” she asked.
“Well, you have the backyard fence, but it’s got a gate. Then the corral fence, but it’s got a gate too. After that there’s the rail fence out into the horse pasture, but there’s a stile over it, and then your fence. So, I suppose I only actually jumped one fence,” he said with another grin and then asked, “Why are you looking at me like that?”
That grin was flirting. If he was her husband, he’d be in the doghouse with Hooter for looking at another woman the way he was staring at her. Liz couldn’t remember when she didn’t work at the carnival in some capacity or another. And she’d seen men walking down the midway with their arm around one woman and eyeing another just like Raylen was doing.
Raylen stood up so fast that Blister rolled down into the chair. “I came to invite you to Sunday dinner tomorrow. We are a neighborly bunch in this part of the world. We do the big family thing on Sunday, and Grandma wants to have music.”
She pointed. “One mile straight across there?”
“That’s right. At noon. My sisters, Gemma and Colleen, will be there and my brother Dewar. My other brother Rye and his wife and baby daughter Rachel live over in Terral, right across the river, and they’ll be coming too. And of course Grandma and Grandpa and Mama and Daddy.”
Liz’s dark eyebrows knit together in a frown. Did he and his wife live with his mother and father?
Well, you lived with your mother until yesterday, so don’t be casting stones! Aunt Tressa’s gravelly voice seemed to whisper so close it sent an involuntary shiver up her spine.
“I’d love to come to dinner. At noon? Can I bring something? What’s your wife’s name?” she blurted out and wished she could cram the words right back in her mouth. God, that sounded so tacky.
“Wife?” he stammered.
“You didn’t mention your wife’s name. Your brother Rye is married to Austin. Are any of the rest of you married?” She had opened a can of worms. There was no putting them back now.
“I wouldn’t be over here askin’ you to dinner if I was married. That wouldn’t be right.” The words shot out of his mouth like a cannonball.
She cocked her head to one side. Were all the women in Ringgold, Texas, blind? Raylen filled out those Wranglers right well, and his biceps strained the seams on his Western-cut plaid shirt. How in the devil had he outrun all the women?
“Do you have a husband?” he asked bluntly.
It was her turn to blush and shake her head emphatically. “Carnies aren’t the marryin’ type.”
“Carnies?” He wondered if that was a family name.
“That’s right. You sure I can’t bring something?” she asked.
“We plan on having a jam session in the afternoon,” he said as he stood up and headed back toward the door. “If you play an instrument, bring it along. If not, just bring a healthy appetite.”
Liz walked him to the door. He turned at the door and looked down into her eyes and she moistened her full lips with the tip of her tongue, but he just tipped his hat at her and walked out into the darkness. Liz wanted that kiss and felt cheated, then cheap. A woman didn’t let a man kiss her just because he asked her to Sunday dinner. She might be a carnie, but she wasn’t trashy. She took a step back and looked over her shoulder at the dog and cat.
“I’ll see you tomorrow then,” she said.
“Be lookin’ for you. Want me to drive over and get you?” he asked.
“No, I’d either walk or bring my own truck,” she answered.
“Okay, then. Good night, Liz.”
“Night, Raylen.” His name slipped off her tongue.
She plopped down in the recliner, and Hooter laid his head in her lap. Blister moved from the back of the chair to the arm and purred. The remnants of Raylen’s shaving lotion surrounded her.
“I’d give you each a big T-bone if you could talk and tell me more about Raylen.”
She dug her cell phone out of her purse and punched in the speed dial for her uncle. After five rings she was about to hang up when she heard his voice.
“Uncle Haskell, hi. I’m here and I’m unpacked, and I was so tickled to see Hooter and Blister. Do I really get to keep them? I’ve already made up my mind. I’m staying on the property, and I promise I’ll spoil them even worse than you did.”
“Whoa, girl. Slow down.” Haskell chuckled. “Yes, you can keep Hooter and Blister. They wouldn’t be happy anywhere but right there, and I know you’ll do right by them. But you haven’t been there long enough to make up your mind, so you have to stay until March when the carnival pulls out of this area before I sign it over to you legally. I told Raylen to water and feed Hooter and Blister. I guess he did?”