Fred snorted.“Why, I’m covered with goose bumps at the sight, myself.”
“You are?”Benny stared at him.“I don’t see nothin’.”
“Oh, Fred, you’re just jealous,” Emmy Lou said, “because you can’t put away food the way you used to when you were younger.”
“Who says I can’t?”Fred held out his plate.“I’ll take another helping of that pot roast.”
“I’m not serving you seconds.”Emmy Lou pushed his plate aside.“You’ll be up all night with heartburn and you know it.”
Quinn glanced up in alarm.“Yeah, and the rodeo and dance are tomorrow.I’m sure we all need a good night’s rest.”
“Oh, we certainly do,” Jo said, covering a smile with her hand.
“I damn well know what’s happening tomorrow, and I’ll have another helping, Emmy Lou.”Fred thrust his plate in her direction again.
Emmy Lou rolled her eyes.“Okay, you stubborn old goat.”She placed more meat and vegetables on his plate.“Don’t blame me when you’re walking the floor at three in the morning.”
Quinn gripped Fred’s arm.“You know, Fred, I’ll bet that would taste even better for lunch.”
Fred glared at him.“Listen here, greenhorn.I was eating Emmy Lou’s pot roast while you were still in diapers, so don’t be telling me the time of day when I can enjoy it.Now take your mitts off my arm.”
“Well, I’ll tell you what, my eyes were bigger than my stomach.”Quinn pushed his plate away.“I’m stuffed.Couldn’t eat another bite.Just one more mouthful and I’d have heartburn for sure.I’m saving this for lunch.And you know, Fred, if we put cellophane over our plates, we could heat them in the microwave and save Emmy Lou the trouble of making us lunch tomorrow before we leave for the rodeo.What do you think of that?”
Fred shrugged.“Suit yourself.Emmy Lou knows she don’t have to bother about my lunch if she’s too tired.I’m capable of building a sandwich.”
“Is that a fact?”Emmy Lou gazed at him.“I’m glad you told me, Fred.And when was the last time you built yourself a sandwich?When Nixon was president?”
Fred looked down the table and winked at her.“I do believe Johnson was in the White House at the time.Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a meal to eat.”
Now that she understood the true nature of it, Jo was fascinated by Fred and Emmy Lou’s relationship, which could turn from gruff to lighthearted in a split second.She assumed that was the mark of an enduring partnership, but she’d never been around a couple who’d had such a long and apparently loving association.She hadn’t known either set of grandparents well, and Aunt Josephine had stayed single all her life.
How sweet it would be to know someone that well, she thought with a pang of longing.Irrationally she thought of Quinn, the man she was destined to know for less than a week.Funny, but he was exactly the sort of man she could imagine creating a long-term partnership with.She could picture them thirty or forty years from now, sparring with each other the way Emmy Lou and Fred did, with a deep respect and love underlying every teasing word.
Love.Oh, my God.Jo glanced quickly at Quinn, as if he might have been able to read her thoughts.She couldn’t love him.She hadn’t known him long enough.She’d never met his family, his friends.She didn’t know if he had a dog, or maybe a cat, or precisely what he did for a living, except that it had to do with money, a subject that had always confused her.
Of course she hadn’t been thinking that she did love him, only that shecouldlove him, in some other circumstance, after they’d become friends and spent lots of time in each other’s company—years, maybe.Love was a tricky emotion.She’d talked herself into loving Dick, and that hadn’t worked at all.
Now it seemed she was talking herself out of loving Quinn.She hoped that worked a little better.Quinn was definitely the wrong man for her to fall in love with, unless she wanted to give up her ranch and send Emmy Lou, Fred and Benny into the street.Good thing she’d had this little mental chat with herself, so she didn’t allow her heart to do something really, really stupid.
“Who wants dessert?”Emmy Lou asked.
Quinn patted his flat stomach.“Couldn’t possibly.”
“What is it?”Benny asked.
“Cherry cobbler.”
“I’ll have some,” Fred said, finishing the last of his pot roast.“Warm, with ice cream on top.”
Emmy Lou shook her head.“Frederick, I do hope you have a good book to read, because you aren’t going to be doing any sleeping tonight.”
“Ah, I’ll sleep like a baby,” Fred said.
“Babies wake up constantly,” Emmy Lou replied.
“I could run into town for some sleeping pills,” Quinn said.“Or those tablets that fizz, or maybe that pink stuff that coats your stomach, or maybe it’s white.I don’t know.I’ll buy it all.Whatever you need.I think sleep is important.Very important.”
Fred gazed at him.“You seem mighty interested in getting me to sleep tonight.Any particular reason?”
