Blame it on Texas by Amie Louellen Read Free Book Online Page A

reached into the cabinet above her head. It was almost as if he was trying to distract her.
    “The baker called. She fell waterskiing this weekend and broke her wrist. She’s in a cast up past her elbow and won’t be able to work for at least four weeks. I need a cake!”
    “For the wedding?”
    “Of course, for the wedding. Can you do it?”
    Ritt picked that moment to move away. Shelby gulped in a big breath of Ritt-free air, clearing her head of his intoxicating presence.
    “I would love to, Dee, but I don’t have any of my stuff here and—”
    “I’ll buy whatever you need.” Desperation dominated her tone.
    “I don’t have an oven big enough or a freezer.”
    “We can use the fellowship hall at the church. Isaac won’t care.”
    “Isaac?”
    “You remember Isaac Yancy. He’s the pastor there now.”
    Shelby didn’t have time to contemplate the fact that the wildest boy in their class was now the leader of biggest church in town.
    “I’ll pay you double,” Delilah continued, “and buy all the ingredients. Please, Shel. I don’t know what I’ll do without your help.”
    Of course she couldn’t leave her friend in the lurch. “I can’t promise you anything elaborate.”
    “Anything is fine.” Delilah’s voice lost its desperate edge. Shelby heard her heave a big sigh of relief. “Thanks, Shel. You’re the best.”
     
     
    Shelby spent the rest of the afternoon in Amarillo gathering supplies. Cake pans, flour, eggs, milk, sugar and so forth. Her plan was simple, make a test cake of her favorite recipes and have Delilah and Craig decide on which one they liked the best. Once the recipe was firm, she’d move the operation to the church kitchen and start baking and freezing.
    Luckily, the guest list for the wedding was smaller than she would have thought. Cake for two hundred was a snap compared to the six or seven hundred that she had first envisioned.
    Ritt was nowhere to be found when she pulled her rental into his driveway that afternoon. Lord only knew where he was. Fishing…drinking…both.
    He seemed to have no ambitions, loafing about with no direction. She refused to believe that she was responsible. He had made his own choices, and she hers. She had opted to get on with her life, start a bakery, and make something of herself while Ritt…hadn’t. So he’d given up his baseball scholarship. They had all made sacrifices. Yet she didn’t understand why he seemed to not care about anything these days.
    She hauled the last of the bags into the house and started putting away the perishables. The fridge was almost empty, home to a container of ketchup and a few bottles of beer.
    By the time she finished unpacking the dry goods, she heard the crunch of gravel from the driveway. Ritt was home.
    She was plugging her cell phone into the brand new charger when he sauntered into the kitchen.
    How a man could make a ratty T-shirt and even rattier jeans look so yummy was mindboggling. Shelby swallowed hard and went back to her task.
    “You get everything you needed from town?”
    She nodded, avoiding his gaze. “I’ll bake tomorrow.”
    “Good, then come on.”
    She looked up and met his steady gaze. “Where are we going?”
    “To the movies.”
    “I don’t think—”
    “Come on, Shelby. There’s nothing to read into this. It’s mindless entertainment. Now let’s go.”
    How could she fight that kind of logic? Okay, so the truth was she didn’t want to tell him no. “All right,” she said as if the idea wasn’t thrilling. While inside her heart gave a lurch of joy.
    The drive into Amarillo was short and familiar. Sitting beside him as if there wasn’t anything between them. She turned her attention to the road in front of them, though her gaze kept straying to her husband. So much was the same, the way he pushed his hair back from his face only to have it fall over his eyes once again. The way he tapped his thumbs against the steering wheel in time to whatever was playing on