“Yes, ma’am, but I’m moving to a new job a few miles north of Katy next week,” he answered.
She slung her purse over her shoulder and handed the quilt to him. “Why?”
“Better job,” he answered.
He shortened his stride to walk beside her out to his truck, which didn’t look a lot better than the one she drove to the speed-dating event the night before. He tossed the quilt in the back seat and opened the passenger door for her.
Holly watched him round the front of the truck and felt more than a little guilty about lying to him. He didn’t seem like the kind of man who would want to be with her because of her money, but then, she’d been wrong about guys in the past. She put that thought from her mind and enjoyed the sight in front of her. Bubba had sure enough dressed to impress that evening in his polished boots, creased jeans, a belt buckle with a bull rider on it, and a cowboy hat.
For the first time, Holly wished that she was really and truly Lula Ann.
“Five minutes isn’t enough to get to know someone,” Bubba said as he slid behind the steering wheel. “So tell me about yourself.”
Not even his sexy swagger and deep drawl amazed Holly as much as he did when he managed the stick shift on the floor of the truck as smoothly as a race-car driver. “You first, and start with how old you were when you learned to drive a vehicle with gears like that. I’ve never even tried driving anything but an automatic vehicle, and I love one that can parallel park itself.”
“I was maybe six or seven,” he answered as he backed the truck out of the driveway and turned right. “I had to sit on two pillows and stretch to reach the pedals. They needed another hand to help haul hay. I was too scrawny in those days to pick up the bales, but I could drive for the big boys. How about you?”
“My story isn’t as colorful as yours. I was fifteen and took a driver’s education class at the school that summer,” she answered. “Did your father work on the ranch, too?”
“Yes, he did, and so did my sister and my mother. We all had jobs. Do you have siblings?”
She shook her head. “I’m an only child. Daddy said after getting a girl with the temper to go with red hair that he didn’t want any more kids. I found out later that they had adopted me because my mama couldn’t have children.”
That was something that she never shared with a date, especially not on the first one.
“My sister is the same. She adopted twin girls five years ago, and just recently added another little cowgirl to the mix. I love my nieces, and they have their Nunky wrapped around their fingers.”
“Nunky?” she asked.
He shrugged and flashed half a grin. “The twins couldn’t sayuncle. It came out Nunky, so that’s what I got tagged with.”
“It’s cute. I like it.” Holly pictured him with his nieces out in a pasture picking wildflowers for their mama and maybe grandmother. Then a picture of their children—hers and Bubba’s—flashed through her mind. She shook her head to get the image out of her mind. It was way too soon to even entertain thoughts like that, not when the relationship, if it could even be called that, could never go anywhere. In a fantasy world, Lula Ann could date Bubba. In the real world, it would never work.
“I love my nieces, but someday I want a whole yard full of kids,” he said.
“Oh really?”
“Yep,” he said with a nod.
“What are your nieces’ names?” she asked, and tried to erase the visual of the two of them as parents.
“Matilda and Madalyn. The new baby is MaLynn,” he answered.
“That’s a lot ofMnames.”
“Yep, but we call them Tilly, Maddy, and Lenny, so that simplifies things,” he said. “Another question for you: When is your birthday?”
“December twenty-fourth, and I’ll be thirty-two years old,” she said. “I don’t mind telling you or anyone how old I am.”
“I just turned thirty-two on April first,” he said. “My sister, Maribelle, is seven years older than me and was born on Thanksgiving. According to Mama, we are her holiday presents.”
Holly smiled and shrugged. “I hear the same thing from my folks. I was the Christmas present. When and if you ever have kids, will you want to name them all with the same letter, and if so, what would it be?”
“No, ma’am,” he answered emphatically. “There’s enoughMnames in the family. I won’t do that kind of thing to my kids—if I ever have any. What about you?”
“If I ever have one, then I’ll have two or three. I always wanted a sibling,” she answered. “But that’s on down the road. I haven’t heard the biological clock ticking just yet.”
Holly had been all over the entire region with her job, but the GPS on Bubba’s phone took them to places she never knew existed. One moment she was in town with the Houston skyline in sight, and then it was gone, and she could see cattle behind barbed-wire fences. Then Bubba was doing an excellent job of parallel parking in front of a place called The Hole in the Wall in a small suburb that she didn’t recognize.
