Chapter 1 Read online

  “But…” Kelly stammered.

  “We are having a party. A big Texas- style barbecue out on our ranch, the Double Deuce. You can use the list to send out invitations for that. Same day as you planned the wedding. From noon until the food and beer is all gone or until everyone goes home. Put a note at the bottom of the invitation that says, ‘No gifts. The presence of your company is the best gift you can give Jasmine and Ace.’ Or something like that.”

  “You can’t do this to me,” Kelly said.

  “I have done it. I mean it, Momma. No wedding.

  No church shit. No presents. Everyone can come to the ranch and have a big time. Ace will send you the ranch logo, which is his brand, if you want to put it on the invitations. I don’t care what they look like. They can be regular old post office postcards run out on Daddy’s computer printer for all I care.”

  “God Almighty!” Kelly King said.

  “I mean it, Momma.” Jasmine felt like a weight had been lifted from her shoulders.

  “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph! You can’t do this, Jasmine Marie!”

  “We can and we did,” Jasmine said.

  “I hope you have five daughters who all disappoint the hell out of you,” Kelly yelled.

  Ace heard that and grinned.

  “I hope if I do that they all elope to Las Vegas, and I was actually thinking seven daughters and then maybe one son.”

  Kelly hung up on her.

  She looked at Ace and started to giggle.

  “How’d that make you feel?” he asked.

  “I sure feel sorry for Daddy tonight because she’s going to be in a royal blue- blooded snit. And I actually feel sorry for her. It can’t be easy to lose control like that.”

  “But how do you feel?”

  She squeezed his hand. “Like King Kong on steroids!”

  “Why?”

  She looked into his eyes. “Because I don’t have to worry with al that wedding shit. Now it’s your turn.

  Call Dolly. I’ll tell Pearl tomorrow and she can put the word out to the rest of the bridesmaids. I’m glad I didn’t ever say anything to Nellie and Ellen, but I do want them invited to the party.”

  Without a moment’s hesitation, he dug his phone from his shirt pocket and hit the right button.

  “Hello, son,” Dolly said.

  “We’re callin’ off the wedding.”

  “Is Jasmine leaving you?”

  Jasmine heard that and held up her wedding ring.

  “No, ma’am. But it’s got way out of hand and it’s crazy. We are married and the license is valid and we don’t want to do it. We’ve decided to do a big party at the ranch on that day so both families and all our friends can meet each other. From noon until the food is gone or the visitin’ is finished.”

  Long silence.

  Jasmine playfully smacked him on the arm.

  “Did Jasmine talk to her mother?” Dolly finally asked.

  “She did.”

  “And?”

  “She wasn’t happy but we’ve made up our minds and we’re not changing them. We’re not having a wedding but we are having a party and Jasmine says no presents, either. Kelly is sending invitations from the list and it will be on there about the presents.”

  “Then we won’t have to do the rehearsal dinner?” Ace could hear what was coming next so he stopped her. “Dexter and Tyson are doing the barbecue and steaks. Lucy and Jasmine will do the desserts. It’s not going to be a catered thing.”

  “Put me down for enough potato salad, cole slaw, and baked beans to feed an army. I’ll get the other girls to help with it and send Dalton and Blake home that weekend. You’ll need the house for her family,” Dolly said.

  “Thank you.”

  Jasmine raised an eyebrow.

  “Done. She’s bringing potato salad, cole slaw, and baked beans.”

  “You got off easier than I did.”

  “Remember that when you have five daughters and want to plan a wedding for them. Maybe you’d rather trade them in on five sons before you even get started.” He chuckled.

  “Las Vegas has this beautiful little wedding chapel I will book and all it takes is a phone call to book a flight there,” she teased.

  “Ready for ice cream?”

  She nodded.

  All was right in the world. Jasmine was sorry that she’d disappointed her mother, but Kelly would get over the disappointment. Ace wasn’t mad at her because of the sex and he was whistling. Jasmine was hungry for the first time in days.

  When they rolled up to the Dairy Queen window, she ordered a double dip of homemade vanilla on a waffle cone.

  Ace ordered a double dip of chocolate on a waffle cone.

  The lady handed the ice creams out the drive- through window, and Ace drove through Bowie to a motel on the east side that reminded Jasmine of the Longhorn back before it burned down. The Wildcat Motel did not have a doofus old neon cowboy on the sign, but, like the Longhorn, it was set up in a U- shape popular back in the fifties.

  “What are you doing?” she asked when he stopped in front of the lobby instead of turning around in the parking lot like she expected him to do.

  “I’ve missed you. I liked coming into the café after hours and having you all to myself for an hour while I ate a burger. But lately everything has been about that damned wedding and there’s always dozens of people around. Let’s get a room for a couple of hours and leave our phones in the car. I don’t care if we just watch reruns of something on television or if we talk the hours away.” He grinned.

  She looked down at the last dip of ice cream and a wicked plan magically materialized. She tossed her phone on the dash and said, “Yes, and please hurry.

  Leave the air conditioning on.”

  Ten licks later on her ice cream cone, he came out of the office holding an old time key with a big chunk of plastic on the chain with it. A burst of hot air escorted him into the truck, and he tossed the room key over in her lap.

  “Number 112, all the way to the end of this side.” He backed out slowly, drove to the end, and parked in front of the right door.

  She slurped up another bit of ice cream, jumped out of the truck, and hurried toward the door so her ice cream wouldn’t melt. She unlocked while he was stil swaggering from the truck to the room.

  It was semi- cool inside, so she headed across the room to the air conditioner unit under the window and turned the knob to high- cool. Immediately the thing began to rattle out enough noise to raise the dead, but it cooled down the room fast and that’s what Jasmine wanted.

  Ace grabbed the remote control, kicked off his boots, and plopped back on the bed using both pil ows as a backrest. He flipped through channels until he found CMT and tossed the remote over on the nightstand.

  “Come lay down beside me,” he said.

  She handed him her ice cream cone. “Hold this for me and don’t take a single bite.”

  Trace Atkins’ video of “Honky Tonk Badonkadonk” started playing on the television and she shot Ace a wicked grin.

  “What?” he asked.

  “Shhh, just don’t eat my ice cream.” She began a slow sexy strip tease, kicking her sandals into a corner and unfastening her jeans to the beat of the music.

  When they were lying over beside the bathroom door, she crawled up onto the bed and caught a bit of ice cream running down the side of the cone with the tip of her tongue. Then she went back to the floor and wiggled and squirmed out of her shirt and then her bikini underwear before crawling back up his legs to wrap her tongue around the ice cream again. When he reached for her, she shook her head.

  “Can’t touch and can’t eat my ice cream. Your job is to hold it for me.”

  She finished up the strip by tossing her bra over the lamp shade and turning around to give him a real honky tonk badonkadonk rear end in full dancing motion.

  Next video was Blake Shelton’s “Hillbilly Bone.” Jasmine couldn’t have had better luck if she’d called the station and requested the two son
gs be played back- to-back at that very time.

  She locked eyes with his and did a slow crawl up his long legs and undid his belt buckle. “Let’s see if your hillbilly bone liked that dance,” she said and licked off more of the melting ice cream.

  “Oh, yes the bone and I both liked that dance very much,” he said.

  She undid his zipper and pulled his pants down to his ankles, taking socks and all off as she went. They landed in the corner with her sandals.

  “I believe you did like it.” She took her ice cream from his hands. “Looks like he could use a cooling down.” Ace’s eyes widened. Hells bells! He never knew what to expect from Jazzy. One minute he thought he knew her well; the next he found out just how little he did know.

  She dumped the ice cream in her hand like it was lotion and tossed the cone into the trash. Her eyes were sparkling when she looked into his.

  “You aren’t going to— ?” Ace gasped.

  “Oh, yes, I am. A baked Alaskan right here in this room. Only reverse. Hot on the inside, cold on the outside.” She covered his erection with the ice cream and then slowly and deliberately licked every bit of it off.

  Ace moaned and tried to flip her over.

  “Oh, no, you don’t,” she said.

  “Then it’s my turn.” He grabbed her hands and one by one licked her fingers clean, wrapping his tongue around each one and savoring every bit of ice cream.

  By the time he finished her thumb, she was panting. She wiggled to settle him inside her and began a fast ride.

  “You going for eight seconds?” he gasped.

  “I’m going for something to stop this aching desire,” she admitted.

  He grabbed that honky tonk badonkadonk in his hands and flipped her over. “Then let’s get it done.” It lasted more than eight seconds but nowhere near eight minutes.

  He collapsed with a groan.

  She managed to snuggle in close to him when he rolled to one side, but that took every ounce of her energy.

  She shut her eyes and Ace traced them with his finger, then her lips and her jawbone.

  “I’m too tired for another round,” she said.

  “Me too. But don’t go to sleep. I want you to hear this, Jasmine.”

  She forced her eyes open.

  “I could never throw you in the trash, darlin’. I like having a wife, but I can live without one. Girlfriends are nice, but I can live without one. I can even live without the best sex I’ve ever known. But I cannot live without you. So kick that shit out of your head.”

  “It’s gone,” she whispered.

  “Promise?”

  “I promise,” she said.

  “We’re okay now?”

  “We’re okay.”

  “Was that sex like King Kong on steroids?” he asked.

  “That was King Kong on a cup of coffee. I’m saving the steroids for something really big. Don’t let me sleep past five. I’ve got three cakes to put icing on,” she said.

  Ace chuckled and held her close. In that moment he knew he wanted to live with Jasmine the rest of his life.

  Now all he had to do was convince her. At least he had a whole year to get the job done.

  Chapter 17

  Jasmine hummed while she shook a little lemon pepper in green beans. She mumbled a few of lyrics and sang them in a whisper to the old country song “Good Hearted Woman.”

  “Good- timin’ man,” she said aloud.

  She’d been thinking about Ace being such a ladies man and then she was humming. It talked about a good-hearted woman lovin’ a good- timin’ man. Jasmine wasn’t a good- hearted woman, but Ace was damn sure a good- timin’ man.

  The words to the fast beat music said that through teardrops and laughter they pass through the world hand in hand. She and Ace had already done that. But then it said that when the party was over she’d welcome him back home again. Not Jasmine! Cheating husbands only had one place to go if they lived with Jasmine, and that was out the door with a boot print on their ass.

  “I’m falling for that good- timin’ cowboy,” she whispered.

  She poured out five pancakes on the grill and had just flipped them when she got a whiff of Ace’s aftershave seconds before he slipped his arms around her waist from behind.

  “What did you say? You were humming and then I heard something about a good- timin’ cowboy.”

  “That’s what you are,” she said.

  “Are you my good- hearted woman, and am I your good- timin’ man? Waylon said that you ain’t supposed to complain about the bad times or the bad things I’ve done,” Ace teased.

  “Darlin’, my heart ain’t that good,” she said.

  He kissed her on the back of the neck. “This good-timin’ cowboy is on his way to Bowie to take the books to the accountant. See you at supper? Think Lucy might serve ice cream tonight?”

  The mother of al blushes fil ed her cheeks with crim-son. “If she does, let’s take ours to the creek and see what happens when we combine skinny- stretchin’ and ice cream sex.”

  “You are killin’ me, Jazzy!” He twisted her around until they were face- to- face, and he kissed her hard. It did nothing to erase the blush from her face or put out the heat in her belly. “Sorry I ain’t been a model husband and a lousy lover this past week but…”

  “Gotta make hay while the sun is shining, right?”

  “You got it, darlin’. You would make a wonderful rancher’s wife, as understanding as you are about the busy season when we work from breakfast until midnight and come draggin’ in with barely enough energy to get a shower. Thank goodness for Lucy. At least I can keep Dexter in the fields and he doesn’t have to go back in to fix meals. Next year I’m hiring one more person for summer help.”

  “Thank you. I’ve missed talking to you at night, Ace.” She looked up into his weary eyes in time to see them slowly closing and his lips headed her way.

  Bridget stuck her head in the kitchen. “Hey, can we start serving lunch early? Is that a PDA in the work-place, I’m seeing?”

  “Yep, couldn’t keep my hands off her. Ain’t she the cutest thing ever this morning in these cute little cutoff jean shorts and that blue shirt the same color as her sexy eyes? And the apron, man, that really turns me on,” Ace teased.

  Bridget giggled. “You are a lovesick puppy, Ace Riley.” Ace dropped another kiss on Jasmine’s forehead and moved toward the back door. “See you at supper. I’ll ask Lucy about that ice cream. Vanilla, right?” Jasmine shook her fist at him. “Get on out of here before I make you wash dishes. And Ace, I’m an accountant. You might remember that.”

  “Lunch?” Bridget asked.

  “Chicken and dressing won’t be ready for thirty minutes. If they want that then the answer is no,” Jasmine answered.

  “They are orderin’ chicken fried steaks, mashed potatoes, and green beans. That much done?”

  “It will be by the time the steaks are fried,” Jasmine said.

  “Then I’ll hang the order and take those pancakes out to table three.”

  “Will do,” Jasmine said.

  Bridget made the rounds with the coffee pot and then made a pass back through the kitchen. “Are those steaks about ready?”

  “Puttin’ them on the plate now,” Jasmine said.

  “Folks that ordered them said they’d like for you to bring them out,” Bridget said.

  “Who are they?”

  “Don’t know. A middle- aged couple. Maybe someone wantin’ to congratulate you that don’t get in too often and just heard about the weddin’,” Bridget said.

  Jasmine set the two plates on a tray, wiped her hands on her apron, and backed out into the dining room. She glanced up at the clock hanging above the order window. Eleven o’clock on the button. Breakfast rush was over and dinner rush would hit hard right before noon.

  Chicken and dressing was cooked and on warm in the oven, and the hot rolls were ready cook a pan at a time so they’d be right out of the oven for the customers.

  Ther
e were only four tables with lingering customers that hated to leave the air- conditioned dining room.

  “Over at table eight,” Bridget said.

  Jasmine headed toward the table in the far right corner without even looking at the customers sitting there.

  Her mind was on all the phone calls she’d already had that morning. Pearl had been elated that the wedding was off and had volunteered to call everyone but Bridget before Jasmine even asked.

  Jasmine told Bridget when she walked in the café that morning. And she’d been sorely disappointed until she found out that she and Frankie were invited to the barbecue. “Well, that sounds like fun. Maybe we’ll get us up a softball game out in the pasture.” Austin offered to bring a case of watermelon wine.

  Gemma said she’d be the bartender for the barbecue.

  Lucy agreed that she and Jasmine could make desserts but thought they should have a real wedding cake just to make Jasmine’s mother feel a little better about the whole thing. But not to worry, one of the women in her meetings made wedding cakes on the side and she’d have her make it.

  She set the tray on table seven, gathered her wandering thoughts, and really looked at the couple. “Oh! I…

  this is a surprise… what are you doing in Ringgold?” She stuttered and stammered.

  “Hello, Jasmine Marie,” her mother said.

  “Hi, kiddo.” Her dad, Walt, grinned.

  Jasmine set the plate down in front of her father and gave him a kiss on the cheek, then did the same for her mother. “I’ve been tryin’ to get y’all to come over and see my business for a whole year. You should have called, Daddy. I’d have made peach cobblers instead of cake for today’s dessert. And Momma, if you are here to try to talk me into changing my mind about the wedding thing, it’s not going to work.”

  She pulled up a chair and motioned for Bridget to bring her a glass of sweet tea.

  “Very good,” Walt said after the first bite of his steak.

  “Momma?” Jasmine asked.

  Kelly King laid her fork down, sipped at her Diet Coke, and said, “Your cooking has always been fine, but you know what this means to me and I’ve given you a week now for your little rebellion and tomorrow is the absolute last day I can get the invitations ordered. We could put it off for one week, have it on the third Sunday in July.”