One Ticket To Texas

Four

Just after dawn the ruckus started. A horn blared outside Irish’s door and something bashed into her wall hard enough to rattle the pictures.

“What the—” She sat straight up in bed. Another horn blasted through the fog in her brain, and she heard loud voices and car doors slamming.

Throwing back the covers, she hurried to the window and peeked out. It looked as if the gypsies had invaded while she slept. Tents were everywhere. Tents and blue canopies and long tables under trees. There must have been thirty or more trucks and cars with trailers scattered around outside the trading post. People were unloading all sorts of stuff from furniture to vegetables.

A wooden trailer that advertised snow cones, popcorn and cotton candy for sale was butted up against her tepee, and a man was waving his arms and shouting, trying to direct the driver of the pickup pulling it.

The trailer pulled forward, then backed up again. Whomp! It slammed against the side of the tepee.

Irish rushed to the door, shoved aside the chest she’d dragged across it to block the way, turned the lock and threw the bolt. “What are you doing?” she yelled. “Trying to demolish the place while I sleep?”

The florid-faced fellow doing the directing stopped waving and gawked at her. Then he swept off his cowboy hat and dropped his eyes. “Sorry, ma’am. Jason can’t quite get the hang of it.”

“Get the hang of what?”

“Parkin’ the stand in the right place.”

The truck door opened and a dejected carrot-topped boy, who couldn’t have been more than fourteen, climbed out. “I can’t do it, Daddy.”

“Well, you’re gonna have to. Your mama ain’t here to do it.”

“But, Daddy—”

“Shut your mouth and get back in that truck before I take a strap to you.”

“Over my dead body!” Irish stormed. She strode to the truck. “Where do you want this thing?”

When the man described the placement he was after, Irish said, “Get in, Jason. I’ll help you.”

Jason, his eyes as big as saucers, got in the truck. Irish climbed on the running board and very quietly directed the boy until they slowly maneuvered the stand into place.

“There you go,” she said. “Perfect.”

A wide grin spread over the boy’s face.

When she stepped off the running board, she realized that all the activity nearby had stopped and people were staring. That’s when it dawned on her that she was barefoot and wearing only a satin sleep-shirt. A very revealing satin sleep-shirt.

Irish didn’t let it phase her. She’d posed for catalogue ads with less on. Nose in the air, she marched into her tepee and slammed the door.

She looked at the clock and groaned. Who got up at such an ungodly hour? Wanting nothing so much as to climb back between the sheets, she conceded that trying to get any more sleep was a lost cause and headed for the shower. She hadn’t slept worth a darn. Even though the bed was comfortable, she’d tossed and turned for hours before she’d finally drifted off.

Kyle Rutledge had been the cause of her restless night. She couldn’t believe that she had allowed him to get under her skin so. If old Pete hadn’t fired his pistol at the right time, in another moment she and Kyle would have been locked in a steamy kiss—and God knows what else might have happened.

She found Kyle much too appealing, and he wasn’t the kind of man that she was interested in, she kept telling herself. He was poor; she wanted rich. If she had any other options, she would leave this place and remove herself from temptation.

Because Kyle Rutledge was very, very tempting.

But, with her financial situation, she had no other options.

She dressed quickly in jeans and an old favorite jersey, took her time with her ritual makeup job and went in search of breakfast.

If the outside looked like an anthill, inside the trading post was even more chaotic. Both tables were full with people drinking coffee and eating rolls and doughnuts, and about a dozen others milled around the store. Kyle stood behind the counter looking harried.

Irish joined him. “You look as if you could use some help.”

“You bet I could. I forgot that this was third Saturday. It’s trading day—a big deal around here. People come from miles away to buy, sell, or swap.”

“What can I do?”

“Make another pot of coffee, help customers, mind the register, cut up a dozen chickens—”

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