“Or not.” Holly giggled. “Get well. You are missing a good time.”
“Where is my best friend, Holly? What have you done with her?” Darlene asked.
“Lula Ann kicked her to the curb. He’s knocking on the door. Gotta go.”
“Yes, yes, go on and enjoy your burger and the movie.” Darlene ended the call.
Holly quickly checked her reflection in the mirror on the way to the living room. She hadn’t had time to change into jeans, so hopefully the sundress wasn’t too fancy for the date Bubba had planned. She had piled her red hair up on top of her head in a messy bun and wore the same cowboy boots that she had the night before.
She opened the door and stood to one side. Her breath caught in her chest at the sight of him standing there with his hat in his hands. Lord have mercy! The man was even sexier than he had been the night before. The sparkle in his eyes made her blush. It took a great deal of her willpower not to fan her face with the back of her hand. “Come on in. The quilt is folded up and in a tote bag ready to go.”
Bubba held out a bouquet of wildflowers tied with a piece of baling twine. “I picked these for you.”
“They are lovely. Give me a minute to put them in water.” She fanned herself with the back of her hand on the way to the kitchen, but it didn’t help the vibes that flowed from Bubba to her when he smiled. She found a jar in the cabinet that still had the paper wrapper on it, testifying that at one time it had held strawberry jam. She filled it with water and settled the flowers down in it.
She thought she had the heat under control, but when she looked up from the flowers, he was on the other side of the counter with that sexy smile.
“Where did you find these?” Her voice sounded strange in her own ears.
“I picked them while I was checking boundary fences,” he answered. “You sure do look pretty. The blue in your dress matches your eyes.”
“Thank you. I bet you tell all your dates that,” Holly teased.
“No, ma’am, just the ones with red hair and blue eyes.”
“I’m not going to ask how many of those there’ve been because that would be way too personal for a first date,” she said.
He raised his dark eyebrows. “Does that mean there will be a second one?”
“We’ll have to see how the first one goes, won’t we?” She finished arranging the wildflowers and took a step back to admire them. “They are beautiful, Bubba. Thank you so much for picking them for me.”
“Red for your hair. Blue for your eyes. Yellow for the sunshine in your smile, and that is not a pickup line.” He chuckled.
“Well, it’s romantic enough to be one. I will grab the quilt, and I’ve got bug spray in my purse. Anything else we need?”
“Nothing, but we should be going. I made reservations for seven.”
Holly jerked her head up. “Reservations for burgers?”
“I’m joking,” Bubba said. “We’re going to downtown Houston, to this little place that I’ve heard makes the best ones in the whole state, and their beer is so cold it will give you a brain freeze worse than homemade ice cream.”
Holly would have preferred a glass of chilled wine, but she guessed that Lula Ann might like a cold beer even more, so she nodded.
“So, this is where you live?” Bubba asked on the way to the living room. “This is a cozy little place. Kind of rustic with all the oak paneling.”
“Yep, but like I said, I haven’t been here long.” She wondered what he would say if he’d picked her up at her modern penthouse apartment downtown. Would he turn tail and run orstick around and mentally count the money in her bank account like some of her previous dates had done? At least, that’s what it seemed like when she saw their eyes light up like firecrackers when they figured out who her father was.
“Where were you before now?” he asked.
“In an apartment,” she answered honestly, and picked up the quilt.
“I’ve seen some of those complexes, and I bet this is a lot less noisy,” he said.
“In some ways, it is, and it’s much quieter than the city. What about you?”
Bubba took the quilt from her and stood to the side to let her leave the house first. “Up in northern Texas, a little town right on the Red River called Ringgold.”
“Where you work on a ranch, right?”
