One Lucky Cowboy by Carolyn Brown Read Free Book Online Page A

and followed her lead, expecting to gag on such a concoction. Surprisingly, it wasn't half bad. Couldn't hold a candle to homemade plum jam, but it wasn't disgusting.
       "So?" she asked.
       "I'm adult enough to admit that it might have worked during the depression, just like all kinds of substitutes for coffee did during the Civil War, but if there's jelly I wouldn't use it," he said.
       "Fair enough. Now what's on our agenda today, ladies?" she asked Nellie and Ellen.
       "We're going to cook dinner like always. Fried chicken and the works. Then afterwards I've got a doctor's appointment in Nocona and while we're going that way, we thought maybe you'd drive us on over to Gainesville to the outlet mall so we could do a little shopping. Ellen doesn't have nearly enough clothes," Nellie rolled her eyes toward the ceiling.
       Ellen put up her hands. "One of my three weaknesses. Clothing. Good-looking men. Fast cars."
       Slade rolled his eyes. "You are both—"
       "Old women? Of course we're old, son. But we ain't dead. When I die I'm going to slide into heaven on Nellie's coattails a-screamin', 'open the doors and let me in. I've used up every bit of my strength livin' and lovin' every minute of it.' And I'll go out knowin' I didn't waste a single minute. I'm going to wear fancy clothes and chase men right up until they put me six feet under. I'd drive fast cars, but you know that story."
       Nellie finished breakfast and sipped at the last of her coffee. "Lord, yes, I know that story."
       "Don't we all," Slade said, glad to be in on an inside story that Jane had no part of.
       "I don't," Jane said.
       "You tell her, Slade, while we wash up the dishes. Go on with him out to the barn and he'll tell you all about his wild aunt. We'll get the potatoes peeled for potato salad, and you can make it when you get back," Nellie said.
       Ellen pushed back a strand of dyed red hair, the gray roots beginning to show, and grinned at Jane. "I'm not wild. I just don't let inhibitions rob me of life. You two get on out of here. Enjoy a little free time. Watch Slade do some work. Maybe he'll even let you ride one of those horses. Of course, I'd rather drive a Corvette down a Texas highway. And don't worry about dinner fixin's. I can cook as well as I can drink and honey, that's damn good."
       "Jane can't ride," Slade said.
       Jane looked right at him. "Want to place a side bet on that?"
       "Twenty dollars says you can't saddle up a horse. Fifty says you'll be begging to be taken back to the bus station by noon if you ride all morning. I'm riding fence today to make sure everything is still tight. You really want to bet with me?"
       "You're on if the ladies can put dinner on the table by themselves," she said.
       "Oh, honey, we work together in a kitchen just fine. You run along and ride the fence with Slade. Just don't either one of you kill the other," Ellen said.
       He combed his blond hair back out of his eyes with his fingertips and picked a straw hat from the hooks beside the back door. He motioned toward the others. "Take your pick. You'll burn without a hat."
       "Mine is the old weathered one with a red bandana hatband," Nellie said. "You are welcome to it."
       Jane settled it on her head and followed him out the back door. It had been months since she'd ridden, but she was no stranger to it.
       When she was eighteen she'd gone away to college. For the next five years she'd studied hard, partied a little, loved a few good men. Then she came home and went to work at the oil company. Paul had an apartment on the top floor of the building, so he seldom came home to the ranch. She drove ten miles to work in the morning, put in a twelve-hour-plus day, and drove home. There was little time except on Sundays for riding and she seldom visited the stables, so it had been a while, but by golly she could still saddle a horse and ride all morning.
       "Molly or