Stars danced around a quarter moon hanging in a black velvet sky that evening. Jasmine could see the whole show out the side window of Flint’s truck. She wondered if she had just committed to something she would regret later. Flint had mentioned that he didn’t do things on impulse. Jasmine couldn’t really say that. She had quit her job in Sherman and bought a café on impulse. She had hired a total stranger to help her at Chicken Fried and then offered him free room and board. And now she had made up her mind to move into the same house with that stranger.
When they got back to Ringgold, Flint slowed as they got near the café parking lot. “I thought maybe we’d go up to that casino and have a barbecue sandwich, or whatever else you might want, to celebrate my decision to buy the ranch.”
“Are you asking me on a date?” Jasmine asked.
“I guess I am. It can be anything you want it to be—a dinner between friends where we’ll talk about your cookbooks and what we’ll do at the ranch, or it can be a date,” he answered. “You call the shots.”
Jasmine was hardly dressed for a first date, but then, the past three days had taught her that this man behind the wheel was no ordinary cowboy. At least the jeans and shirt she’d worn all day didn’t have stains on them. “A barbecue sandwich does sound good, but I usually clean up a little better than this for a date.”
“You look great.” He passed by the café and headed on north.
Cowboys, truck drivers, and folks just passing through stopped by the café all the time since it was right off Highway 81. Pretty often, guys flirted with her, but none of them ever sent her hormones into overdrive like Flint did by simply saying that she looked great.
“From what the sign said, it’s only five miles from here to the casino. Terral must be pretty big to have a casino,” he said.
“The town might have four hundred people, but it’s doubtful,” she told him. “You’ll find lots of casinos in Oklahoma wherever there’s a bridge across the Red River.”
“Do you ever play the slots or the poker tables?” Flint asked.
“Not me.” Jasmine shook her head. “I’m way too tight with my money to give it away like that. I don’t buy lottery tickets either. I’m one of those ‘Bird in the hand is worth more than two in the bush’ people. Sometimes, it is kind of nice to sneak off over the bridge and grab one of their sandwiches, though. They really are good.”
“Well said,” Flint nodded in agreement. “I’m not a gambler, either, and yet here I am, taking a chance on a small ranch with neighbors I only met three days ago.”
“Some things are gambles, others are just a matter of using common sense. There might be a fine line between them, but you’re smart enough to know the difference,” she said.
He crossed the Red River bridge, and only a few hundred yards ahead was the casino. He found a parking spot and nosed into it. “It’s not as big as I thought it would be.”
“It doesn’t take a big building to take your money.” Jasmine unfastened her seat belt.
Before she could sling the door open, Flint was there to open it for her. He held out his hand to help her.
Yep, this is a date, she thought. I wonder if he’ll want a good-night kiss.
She stole a quick look at his lips and wished that she didn’t have a rule about kissing on first dates. Kissing was a second-date thing, and sex was out there about the fifth or sixth date. The ex in her past that had broken her heart had been one of those smooth-talking guys and had gotten lucky on their second date. She’d buried her head in the sand for the next several years before she finally woke up and realized that she was his safety blanket. They were living together, and he was telling his other women that if he left her, she might do something drastic. Finally, she had taken her life back, kicked him out, left her job, and bought a café.
I guess he was right, Jasmine thought. By his standards, I did act irrationally.
The trouble was that she had never trusted guys again. She had gone out with a few over the years. Some got to the kiss-goodnight stage, a couple to the sex stage, but none of them lasted long because she simply couldn’t—or wouldn’t let herself—trust them.
“You’re awfully quiet,” Flint said as he opened the door into the casino for her.
“Letting ghosts from the past rise up when I shouldn’t.” She walked into a warm place with a hint of cigarette smoke blended with barbecue permeating the air.
“I do that sometimes, but tonight, we need to tell them to get lost. We’re celebrating a change in our lives. I never dreamed when I said goodbye to the Walker Ranch that I’d find a home.” He ushered her into the restaurant with his hand on the small of her back.
More of those little shivers ran up and down her spine at his touch. She wondered if this was what Pearl was talking about when she first told her about Wil.
The restaurant wasn’t very busy, and they were taken to a booth right away. The young lady told them that their waiter would be with them in a few minutes and disappeared. Almost immediately an older lady came across the floor, gave them a menu, and asked what they’d like to drink.
“Do you have champagne?” Flint asked.
“I’d rather have a beer,” Jasmine piped up before the waitress could answer. “I’m a cheap date. Never did like champagne, but if you want it, that’s fine.”
Flint chuckled. “Then we’ll have two beers. What’s your favorite?”
“Longneck Coors,” Jasmine answered.
“Same here,” Flint told her.
The waitress nodded. “I’ll give you time to look over the menu and be back in a minute with your beers.”
“I still want a barbecue sandwich with fries,” Jasmine said and laid the menu on the edge of the table.
Flint closed his menu and laid it on top of Jasmine’s. “Me too. We really should be in a fancy place, having a steak and at least a drink with an umbrella in it to celebrate.”
“Like I said, I’m a cheap date”—she smiled across the table at him—“and I can cook a good steak and make a drink with an umbrella at home. I don’t do so hot on barbecue. Just never have found the right recipe for sauce to suit me.”
“Hey, I’m good at that job,” Flint said. “When the movers get here with my stuff, they’ll be bringing in a smoker, and I make a fine barbecue sauce. Looks like between the two of us, we’ll have the food end of living on the ranch pretty well covered.”
Jasmine inhaled deeply and let it out slowly. “Is all this moving too fast?”
“Yes, it is, but then that’s where trust comes in. I’ve had trouble trusting anyone since my ex broke up with me for my cousin. Seems like she didn’t like ranching life and just didn’t want to tell me. I hope that you will tell me exactly what you like and don’t like,” Flint said.
Jasmine nodded. “You can depend on that. I have trust issues too. My ex cheated on me more than once.”
“You don’t seem like the kind of woman to put up with that,” Flint said.
“You don’t see what you don’t want to see. I had my head buried so deep in the sand that my ears were full of it. That’s why I couldn’t hear my best friends telling me what he was doing,” Jasmine told him. “Did anyone warn you?”
“No,” he answered, “but looking back, I should have seen the signs. Enough about our exes, though. This is a date, remember, so let’s talk about these cookbooks you’re writing, or I could just sit here and tell you how pretty you are, or maybe how the temperature rose ten degrees when you walked into the casino.”
The waitress brought their beers, took their orders, and rushed off to wait on more folks coming into the restaurant.
Jasmine took a long drink of her beer and then said, “I’ve heard about every pickup line in the world.”
“Do you go out to bars for a night of dancing on Saturday nights?” Flint turned up his bottle and took a drink.
“Not just no, but hell no! I’m tired enough by Saturday night that the only dancing I do is across the floor and up the stairs so I can prop up my feet.” Jasmine might not have to worry about a good-night kiss on the second date. When Flint realized how boring she was, there might only be one date and this was it. Tonight would be the first and last.
“Is the café open on Sunday?” Flint asked.
“Nope, and on my one day off, I catch up on laundry and housecleaning,” she told him. “I live such an exciting life that coming up here for a sandwich and fries is a big deal.”
“That’s kind of like ranch life,” Flint said. “Work all week. Get off at noon on Saturday unless you own the ranch, then you work until dark that day too. Sunday is church and playing catch-up with the household duties. Grandpa said that if you love what you work at, be it digging ditches, fixing fences, or working cattle, or even sitting in the Oval Office up there in the White House, then you are a success. I guess we’re both a success.”
“I’ll drink to that.” She held her bottle up.
“Me too.” He clinked his bottle against hers.
Jasmine wished she could hang on to the feeling she had when she and Flint were visiting over supper at the casino. But it all faded quickly when she unlocked the back door of the café and realized that now they had to clean up the place for the next morning.
“I’ll grab the broom and mop and come help you as soon as I get the dining room put to rights.” Flint opened the door to the utility room. “Looks like we’ve got a full basket of café laundry in here too. I’ll just pitch it in the washer.”
“And so ends a perfect date,” Jasmine muttered as she slipped an apron over her head, tied it in the front, and went to work.
But give thanks that you had a lovely evening to think about while you clean up this place, the voice in her head said.
Jasmine nodded in agreement and got busy. At least I’ve got good help. I hope Diana’s new hired hands are willing to work as hard as Flint.
In an hour they had the whole place ready for the next morning and started up the stairs.
“I want to call Sam and talk to him some more.” Flint followed behind her.
“I’m going straight for a shower and then to bed.” Jasmine didn’t even slow down at the top of the steps but headed straight to the bathroom at the end of the hall. She had just passed Flint’s bedroom door when she caught something out of the corner of her eye that she thought was a mouse. She tried to get both feet off the floor at the same time, but only succeeded in falling backward and landing in Flint’s arms.
“Mouse!” She could barely speak.
“No, just a big old wolf spider that jumped onto my boot and is now dead.” Flint held her close to his chest. “No need to get the sawed-off shotgun. The varmint is dead. Open your eyes and see his poor old, squashed body.”
“You’re sure it’s not a mouse?” She shivered.
“Positive. Just a spider the size of a baby mouse,” he assured her. “Good thing neither of us are afraid of eight-legged critters.”
Jasmine slid one eye open enough to see the remains of the spider on the hardwood floor and started to take a step back, but Flint held her tighter. She shifted her focus from the floor to his face just as his thick eyelashes slowly came to rest on his high cheekbones. She barely had time to moisten her lips and tiptoe before his mouth found hers in a kiss that made her forget that there was a world around them.
Jasmine felt as if she and Flint were wrapped in an oversized cocoon made of plush velvet. Then suddenly, it was entirely too warm, and heat filled her body. When the kiss ended, he kissed her again, this time on her forehead, and even that was scorching hot.
“Oh! My!” she gasped.
“I know.” Flint’s drawl was lower and huskier than usual.
She took a step back even though she wanted to stay in his arms all night. “That was…” She searched for the right words.
“Amazing. Awesome. Hot as hell.” He filled in the words for her.
“The latter is more what I was thinking. I need a cool shower,” she whispered.
“Me too”—Flint nodded—“but you go first. I’ll clean up the spider mess.” That sounded stupid, he realized, after a kiss that nearly knocked his cowboy boots off. He was almost forty years old, and he had never had trouble sweet-talking the ladies. Where had his game gone?
“Thank you,” Jasmine whispered. “Now I feel all awkward, like that was my first kiss, and I don’t know what to do.”
“I know exactly what you mean.” He finally smiled. “That was our first kiss, and maybe…” He drew her back into his arms and tipped up her chin with his knuckles. The second kiss was even fierier than the first, and when it ended, he said, “Nope, it’s not beginner’s luck or heat or whatever. That one was just as hot as the first one.”
“We’d have to call the fire department if we chanced a third one.” She stepped out of his reach and headed toward the bathroom. At the door, she turned and smiled at Flint. “Thank you for a wonderful first date, but I usually don’t kiss until the second date.”
“I’ll consider myself special, then.” He blew a kiss her way and went into the sitting room where he sank down on the sofa and fanned himself with a catalog that he picked up from the end table.
Just as he pulled his phone from his shirt pocket, it rang. He chuckled when Sam’s name popped up on the screen. “Great minds really do think alike,” he answered. “I was just about to call you.”
“Please, tell me you haven’t changed your mind.” Sam’s voice was full of concern. “I’ve already told Gator that we were back in the ranching business.”
“If anything, I’m even more sure that this is what I want to do.” Flint touched his lips to see if they were as hot as they felt. “The guy who’s handling this sale says that when I decide, I can begin to move in. So, when you get here, the cabin is yours—empty but ready for you.”
“I called a moving company that I know, and they can pack up the storage unit by tomorrow night. I’ll follow the truck to the ranch Friday. This is divine intervention, son. I feel it in my old bones.” Sam sighed. “God himself is looking out for you and me.”
Flint heard a deep growl in the background.
“And Gator.” Sam laughed. “He says that he’s bored with this place and needs a little more room and some fences to patrol. Now, about Jasmine. Is she really considering moving to the ranch and cooking for us? Are you sweet-talkin’ her yet?”
“Yes, and yes,” Flint answered. “There’s something about her, Sam. I feel like I’ve known her forever, and that I can trust her.”
“Well, that’s an amazing start, especially after what you’ve been through,” Sam said.
“Yep, it sure is,” Flint agreed. “I’m talking to Clark in the morning. I’m even hoping to get the paperwork started tomorrow. He says since it’s a cash deal, it doesn’t take as long to put the deed in my hands as it would if we had to go through the bank.”
“As long as we’ve got free rein on the ranch, the paperwork is just a formality,” Sam said. “Me and Gator have some more packing to do. Just think! By Monday morning me and you can be working on fences, or…” He paused. “Monday is Valentine’s Day. Have you asked Jasmine out to dinner yet? And remember to get her flowers and candy, or both.”
“Yes, sir.” Flint made a mental note to do something really nice for Jasmine on that day.