Future Wife:Less hot than my post-birthday look? No promises.
Four days since Jonas’s runaway incident. Four days since Whit and I made out on her couch in the dark. I spent all of the next day plotting how to play it cool and avoid kissing her the second I walked through that door. I had a plan. No suggestively slurring the wordmama. No yearning, pathetic glances. No secret hand holding.
Easy peasy.
Until we got close to the house, and I remembered she’d be wearing her work clothes—which made me fantasize aboutrole-playing as her assistant. The tops of my thighs tingled, and my dick started hardening, so I feigned a stomachache and ditched Jonas at the end of the driveway.
But tonight?
Tonight I’m taking my future wife on her last first date.
There’s an undeniable spring in my step as I head downstairs at the bunkhouse, and it’s not only because Betty’s biting at my heels. Most of the ranch hands are relaxing around the table or on the beat-up old couches, drinking beer and shooting the shit while the newest guy in the bunks is tasked with making a giant pot of spaghetti Bolognese.
“You look pretty spiffy for spaghetti night.” Rob looks me up and down as he peels the label from his beer bottle.
“No sketti for me tonight.” I slip into my cowboy boots and smooth a hand over the front of my shirt. “I’ve got plans in town. You guys mind giving Betty Spaghetti a bowl of her namesake food, though?”
The spaghetti-slinging ranch hand, Ryan, nods. “Extra sauce?”
“Nah, then it all gets in her fur and my bed looks like somebody was murdered in it.” I steal a glance in the small mirror near the front door to tidy up my mustache and straighten my cowboy hat. “Holy fuck, I’m handsome. Somebody cast me in a remake ofSmokey and the Banditalready.”
“You gonna play the dog?” Rob quips.
Ryan changes the subject, stirring the simmering sauce on the stove. “Got a hot date tonight?”
Rob snorts. “Yeah, right. Only woman he spends time with is his mom.”
“I’m picking up my own version of Sally Field—except even hotter—and taking her out in my own version of a Trans Am, actually.”
Rob says, “Sure,and I’m about to get a call that I won a million dollars and don’t have to work with you fuckers anymore.”
“The government would send all that money to your ex-wife for alimony before you even saw a penny of it,” Ryan says, dodging the fork that Rob chucks at him.
That’s my sign to leave, and I slip out of the bunkhouse before anybody can question me further. Betty sees me off to my truck, then saunters back toward the house, shoving her chunky butt through the dog door.
By the time I’m pulling up in front of a house two doors down from Whit’s, I’m more bundled wreck of nerves than man. My muscles are jittery in anticipation and, though the truck’s air conditioner is working fuckingminttoday—for the first time all summer—I’m sweating. Through the shaking and nervous cheek-gnawing, I make sure I’m still looking as good as I did when I left the ranch, then I text Whit to let her know I’m parked a few houses down. That was her one request, and as much as I hate the concept of not greeting her at the door with flowers, I’ll do anything she asks of me.
I didn’t have girls stealing across lawns to secretly date me as a teenager, but it still feels pretty fucking badass at twenty-nine. Whit briskly walks away from the house without so much as a half-glance back, a smile lighting up her face, hair fluttering around her shoulders. Her sandals slap against the pavement, almost skipping on her way to my truck. She’s wearing a dress again tonight, though it’s different from the one she wore for her birthday—more sweet and summery, less maneater. My girl’s versatile.
Her dress is the color of lush hayfields right before cutting, and it matches her eyes. The hem swishes across her thighs when she climbs into the passenger seat.
“Hey, Mama.” I present a small bundle of yellow wildflowers. Pickings are getting slim, with summer coming to an end, but I managed to find a few on my drive to town.
She takes the simple bouquet, staring down at it with a smile that encompasses her entire face. “You know, there have beenmanydays where I was ready to gouge my ears outif I had to hear ‘mom’ one more time. But hearingyoucall me ‘mama’? God, it’s so good.”
“Is that so,Mama?” I wink. “You look really pretty.”
“Thanks.” She sets the flowers on her lap and tucks a lock of hair behind her ear. Most of it is pinned back with a large brown clip, but a few silken pieces have rebelled. “Where’s Betty?”
“As much as I love her, she’s not welcome on dates. I left her back at the ranch bunkhouse. The guys are pretty good to her, especially on spaghetti night, so she won’t miss me too much.”
Whit adjusts her seatbelt, stealing a glance at her house as I turn the truck around.
“No babysitter issues tonight?”
Her nostrils flare, lips held in a thin, unyielding line. “Not yet. But the night is still very, very young. Although I didn’t tell Jonas I was going on a date—he thinks I’m going to a book club meeting.”
“Are you in a book club?”
