Sherry bounced into the kitchen, her ponytail bobbing up and down. She called out an order and then turned to Abby. There was a broad smile on her face. "You have got to tell me how you did that. I have been trying to be the meat in that sandwich for ten years."
"Don"t you go being nasty, girl," Len warned.
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Sherry looked up, completely guileless. She was twenty-five and had no ambitions beyond making her hair appointment next Monday.
"I am not being nasty. Well, maybe I am, but this is girl talk. You just don"t listen in." Sherry sighed. "Ten years. I understood in the beginning. I was jail bait, but even after I was all legal and stuff, I couldn"t get them to date me."
"Them?" Abby was shocked that Sherry knew. It was supposed to be a closely guarded secret.
"Hon, everyone knows those boys are perverts." Len waved his hand. "I suppose the old church ladies might have cared at one point, but Jack and Sam rebuilt First Presbyterian after that fire a few years back, so they decided to close their mouths. To each their own, I say."
"It"s not like they haven"t dated." Sherry wrinkled her cute little nose. "Those boys haven"t been celibate, but they tend to be real picky. Well, Sam"s not, but Jack is. They might try to keep it quiet, but this is a small town. Everyone is up in everyone else"s business.
Those boys just made a public declaration of intent regarding you.
It"ll be all over town by the time the Cowboys game is on."
Abby"s cheeks felt like they were on fire. How was she going to go back out there when everyone knew what she had been doing?
"I"d watch out for Melissa Paul, though," Sherry warned. "She"s works at the Wal-Mart a town over. She has wanted to get her hooks into Sam Fleetwood for a long time. Sam went out with her about a year ago, but Jack couldn"t stand her, which tells me he has good taste. Sam broke it off, and she"s been acting like a scalded cat ever since."
"Sam dated someone without Jack?"
Len nodded as he cracked eggs into a bowl. "Sam is the one who dates. Jack just joins them later, if you know what I mean. I just about fell on the floor when he told Kyle Morgan he was serious about you and you were his girlfriend."
Abby"s jaw dropped. "He said what?"
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Sherry"s face just lit up. She loved juicy gossip. "Kyle Morgan"s boys asked if you were Jack"s girl, and he said yes. He even smiled when he did it. I didn"t know his face worked that way. Usually Jack is grrrr, and dark and broody. He likes to have a bada.s.s reputation."
"Then the man shouldn"t rescue every stray dog he finds." Len laughed. He flipped a pancake. "It was hard to stay terrified when I saw the man stop that big truck of his to move a turtle out of the road.
Let me tell you, Abby, it didn"t take long before the women of this town figured out Jack Barnes was a sucker for a hard luck story. That man has fixed more leaks, roofs, and cars than any one man should have. He doesn"t date the way Sam does because he doesn"t have the time."
"But he does it all with a frown on his face," Sherry observed. "I suppose he thinks that keeps his image up." She stared out the window to the dining room. "Gotta go. The natives are restless." She walked off, a fresh pot of coffee in her hand.
"He"s a good man, Abby." Len pushed the tray toward her. It was full of pancakes and greasy bacon and runny eggs. It was a heart attack waiting to happen. The nurse in Abby wanted to lecture someone. "So is Sam. A woman could do a lot worse."
Abby noted the table number and stopped in her tracks. "Len, we"re going to have to change this order."
The cook looked back curiously as Abby told him what she was going to need. He shook his head like he wasn"t so sure this was a good idea, but Abby had a plan. If Jack Barnes was going to announce she was his girlfriend, he was going to have to learn to deal with what that really meant.
Five minutes later, she reloaded the tray herself and got back to work.
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Jack stared down at the plate Abby placed in front of him. There were eggs, Canadian bacon, and a bowl of fruit. There was only one problem with it.
"This is not what we ordered." Jack had been looking forward to a huge breakfast of his usual pancakes, bacon, and fried eggs. He had worked up an appet.i.te, but it seemed Abby wanted a little revenge.
His mood took a deep dive. He really hadn"t expected that.
"It"s all you"re getting," Abby said saucily.
Sam poked at the fruit like it was some foreign thing he"d never seen before rather than chunks of pineapple and melon. He looked at Abby with a desperate expression on his face. "Where are our pancakes? We ordered pancakes. Come on, Abby. I was nice to you.
Jack was the mean one who stole your panties. Punish him."
Jack"s eyes narrowed on Abby as she rested her hand on her hip and appeared ready for a fight, which he was willing to give her.
"Take this back, Abby. Bring us what we ordered."
She shook her head. "I don"t think so. There are no more pancakes for you here."
Jack slid out of the booth and stood over her. Now everyone in the cafe was watching. "Are you telling me we are no longer welcome in this establishment?"
Sam stood behind Abby and put his hands on her shoulders, almost as if he was ready to pull her out of Jack"s line of fire if he had to. "I"m sure that"s not what she meant, Jack."
Abby rolled her pretty hazel eyes. "I"m not kicking you out, Jack.
Why would I do that? I am telling you that if I"m your girlfriend, I have certain rights. You have taken certain rights and privileges concerning me, and I think I should have the same chance with you."
"What privilege is it you"re looking for, Abby?"
She didn"t seem the least bit intimidated by him as she poked him straight in his chest. "I am claiming the privilege of keeping you alive through tomorrow." She leaned in and kept her voice low. "Do you have any idea how much lard Len uses? I had to make the egg white
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omelets myself because he said it was a sin to waste the yolk. If that is the way you eat every day, then you are a heart attack waiting to happen. I see it every day, Jack. Don"t think a thirty-year-old man can"t have a heart attack."
"But we work on a ranch all day, Abby," Sam argued. "We need a lot of calories."
"I"m fine with that as long as they come from a good source," his little Nurse Abby said practically. "You need good, low-fat protein and complex carbohydrates."
Every muscle in Jack"s body stilled for a moment. He looked deeply into Abigail"s eyes, searching for the truth. "Are you telling me you changed our order because you"re worried about us? Not because you want to get back at me?"
The confusion in her eyes was all Jack needed. He felt his gut unclench as he realized Abby was just fussing over them. "Why would I want to get back at you?" She leaned over. "I will get my panties back, though, Jack." The last part was whispered with a purely feminine promise of retribution, and it caused Jack to throw his head back and laugh.
Jack sat back down. He picked up his fork and dug in. Jack gave Sam an encouraging smile.
"It"ll be fine, Sam." Abby winked at them. "You"ll find you can survive just fine on relatively healthy food. People do it all the time."
Sam eased into the booth and frowned at the plate. "Who eats fruit for breakfast?"
"People who want to live," Abby said with a smile. She turned to check on another customer, but Jack"s hand reached out and held her.
"We have a date tonight," he reminded her. She hadn"t actually said yes when they asked her out the day before, but she"d f.u.c.ked them a couple of times since then, so it seemed a reasonable bet.
"We"ll pick you up at seven."
Abby"s face fell. "I can"t leave my mom again, Jack. I"m sorry."
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Sam grinned. "I think you"ll find your mama is playing bingo at the Presbyterian Church tonight with her friend, Sylvia."
"But Mom can"t drive, and Sylvia won"t be able to support her if she needs help."
"That"s why one of our ranch hands and his wife are going along with them." Jack had already solved that problem. "Juan and his wife are very fond of bingo." They were also fond of the bonuses Jack handed out and had fallen all over themselves to help out. "Your mom knows them from church. She is very excited about getting out of the house."
"I just bet she is," Abby said in a low drawl. "Are you going to go over and help her with her hair, Jack?"
"If that"s what it takes." Jack had the confidence of a man who knew he had all the exits guarded. "Seven o"clock. We"ll go somewhere nice."
Abby seemed to brighten at that and nodded. "Seven it is, then.
I"ll be ready, and I think I"ll wear a dress...and maybe some heels."
She gave them what Jack was starting to think of as her siren smile. It never failed to get him excited. She walked away. Jack felt somewhat responsible for the bounce in her step.
Sam stared at his partner. "Are you really going to eat that?"
Jack"s eyebrows shot up. "Every bite. Maybe you"ve had enough people who gave a s.h.i.t about you in your life, but I haven"t. She made this herself, and I"ll be d.a.m.ned if I don"t eat it, despite the fact that Canadian bacon is far inferior to honest-to-goodness American bacon.
You"re going to eat it, too. It might hurt her feelings if you don"t."
"Fine." Sam tried the melon. "At least I have dinner to look forward to. Promise me she won"t get up from our table at the steak house and take over the kitchens to make us something healthy."
"I promise nothing. That woman is a force of nature."
Sam nodded. "That was smart of you to set up a fun night for her mom."
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"It"s all about breaking down the stop signs she"s going to put up." Jack was a firm believer in plowing through obstacles. He never tried to go around something when he could just smash through. "She wants us. That much is very clear to me. She"s just a little scared. We need to treat her like a fractious mare."
Sam"s eyes lit up with mirth. "Yeah, I get what you"re saying. We need to sneak up on her real quiet-like, and then, when she"s calm and stuff, we jump her, force a saddle on her, and ride that baby until she can"t imagine a time we weren"t on top of her."
"Exactly," Jack agreed as his phone rang. He pulled it out and checked the number. It was familiar so he answered. "h.e.l.lo, Christa, how are you doing this morning? Are you checking to make sure Abby got to work? I a.s.sure you she is one hundred percent here and giving us both h.e.l.l. Whoa...what do you mean? They wrote what?
Tell Mike not have it towed yet. I want to see it for myself. We"ll be there in ten minutes."
Jack took out his wallet and threw down more cash than he needed to. Abby would always get a good tip out of him.
"What"s up?" Sam took a final drink of coffee.
"Looks like someone in this town doesn"t see how sweet our Abby is," Jack said in a low growl that let everyone who heard it know there was going to be trouble.
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Chapter Six.