They might not be so much younger than she, but their attitudes about men and sex made her feel out of touch. “Listen, all of my meetings with him have been so bizarre I don’t think there’s a danger I’ll be spending the night with him.”
***
On Saturday, Betty Ann and Jessica pushed Sandi out the door of her store mid-afternoon and she headed home. She still hadn’t shaken off the fear that she smelled like a skunk, so she showered and shampooed her hair again and doused herself with Juicy Couture. The temperature was forecast to drop after dark, so with her best pair of jeans, she put on a beige turtleneck sweater. She dug the cowboy boots out of her closet, wondering all the while what, other than a dog, she had in common with a man who had chosen “cowboy” as a career.
After feeding everybody, she drove toward Kroger, the grocery store that she knew had a good selection of wines. He might have said he had wine, but probably, it was packaged in a cardboard box. She didn’t want to drink rotgut alcohol with choice steaks.
Again, why am I doing this? she asked herself as she drove. Do I really need to have dinner with a man who makes me uncomfortable just so I can visit Waffle?
At the grocery store, she bought the best bottle of Merlot on the shelf, certain it would taste better than what he would supply.
To her surprise, she didn’t get lost. She reached a neatly kept older house surrounded and shaded by live oak trees. The trees were huge, which meant they could be a hundred years old. And so could the house from the looks of it. It had a wide gray-painted porch wrapping around two sides.
Nick, Waffle and Randy came out the front door as she parked in the driveway. Randy strained at the end of a leash. Nick was wearing his signature Wranglers and boots, a long-sleeve blue button-down, a bright blue puffy vest and a gimme cap with the Purina red-and-white checkerboard logo. He looked all luscious and coordinated.
She opened her car door and had put only a foot out before Waffle leaped forward, placed his front paws on her shoulders and began to lick her face. “Oh, Waffle, I miss you so much. Everyone misses you.”
His weight pushed her back into the car and he continued licking her face and making that keening noise in his throat that he always made when he was happy. She hugged him and rubbed his back and head.
“Buster, get back here.” Nick gripped his collar and pulled him back.
Sandi dug into her purse for the Barkies she always kept there and offered them. Waffle wolfed them down, then danced in a circle and wagged his tail furiously. Randy, too, gobbled up a couple of the cookies.
“Looks like he’s glad to see you,” Nick said. “Randy, too.”
She looked up and Nick was smiling down at her, his hand resting on the top of her SUV’s door. For the first time she noticed that the ends of his hair touched his collar. And his jaws looked freshly shaved. Close up, he was even better-looking than that day in court.
Crap. Why can’t he be ugly?
Though her stomach had flipped and her brain had temporarily disconnected, she managed a smile. “Wish I could have brought the rest of the gang with me. Waffle’s like their family. He was their leader.”
“He’s an alpha dog all right.” Nick the Beautiful bent down and scruffed Waffle’s ears, a clean-smelling scent of his cologne drifting her way. Waffle leaned into his hand and gently nipped it. Nick rubbed his head. “Good dog, good dog.”
He straightened. The two dogs stood there looking up at them as if awaiting the next compliment or order. Or in reality, they were probably waiting for another treat.
Nick looked past her into her car. “Where’s your jacket?”
“This sweater will be warm enough.”
“You need a jacket. Be right back. Hold this.” He handed her the end of Randy’s leash, turned and strode back into his house.
“Well, Mr. Randy. Isn’t he bossy?” she said to the puppy.
Randy wagged his tail and barked.
Nick soon returned with a red fleece jacket bearing a black Texas Tech logo, bringing back their conversation months back in Hogg’s: ...Went to Texas Tech on a football scholarship. Got a degree in biology. Been through A&M’s range management program. Studied grasslands enhancement with Dow Chemical. I’ve got a Masters in animal nutrition....
She pinched herself mentally. Nick might look and talk like a dumb cowboy, but appearances could be deceiving.
While she shrugged into the jacket that swallowed her, he opened the back gate of an old Jeep Wrangler. Waffle jumped inside, but Randy was still too small to make the leap. Nick picked him up and placed him on the Jeep’s deck beside Waffle. “Here ya go, Little Bit. Going for a nice ride. That sound good?”
She was touched by the gentleness with which Nick treated the puppy that obviously would grow up to be smaller than Waffle.
He came around to the passenger side and opened the door for her. “This is my chariot. Climb in.”
She did, he scooted behind the wheel and they trundled off toward the pasture behind his house.
“Thanks for the jacket,” she said. “But I feel like a traitor wearing it. I went to college at UT Permian in Odessa.”
He grinned and winked. “Thirty minutes from now, you won’t care. It’ll feel good.”
He drove over the rough terrain with confidence and competence. Crap. She hated seeing him display that masculine self-assurance that appealed to her. She hadn’t often seen it. At the bank where she had worked for years, most of her male co-workers were milquetoasts who worked at clerical-type jobs and had no muscles. Richard was the same way.
“Nice day,” he said as they bumped and lurched along.
Discussing the weather? Ugh. But then, what had she expected? He was probably like most of the rural people she knew who
