Bootscootin' Blahniks Read online

  Avoiding direct eye contact with anyone, even the dog, Zayne took a mug out of the cabinet above the sink and poured a cup of coffee. His back took the brunt of the holes bore by their expectant faces. He couldn’t help but notice Studley Pete’s front paws shielding his eyes from the drama about to unfold. Zayne’s most loyal friend was no dummy.

  “So what’s the verdict on Roxy’s ankle?” His mom fired the first shot. Like she’d ever refuse to take one. “The poor dear. What did you do to get her so flustered?”

  “That’s nice, Mom, just assume it’s my fault. Her ankle will be fine in a day or two. It’s a mild sprain.” Zayne set his mug on the table, glaring at her before picking up a plate and heading to the counter to fill it with Cody’s quality cooking.”

  “It’s a fair assumption. You’re no Romeo. And whenever you’re around that girl, bad things happen to her,” Kat said, taking his plate away from him then motioning for him to sit at the table. While serving up heaping proportions of scrambled eggs, bacon, buttered toast and fresh-sliced tomatoes, she continued, “I saw you two arguing. Then I saw her stomp away. What am I supposed to think? You’re such your father’s son.”

  Zayne looked at Damian and Cody for support, but suddenly the food on their plates required their full attention. All he got was the tops of their heads. “Gee, thanks, guys.”

  Begging off, Damian lifted his shoulders and threw up his hands. Cody simply smiled at his plate, shook his head and kept eating.

  “Mom, I’d like to think I’m more like you than Dad,” Zayne said, hoping that would knock her down a notch.

  “Sooo not working, son.” She slammed his plate in front of him. “Try again. We’re not talking intelligence. We’re talking basic socialization skills. Skills your father never had, God love him, and you pretend not to have.”

  “So that would make me more like you, then, right?” Zayne harrumphed, knowing he had her. She’d never excelled at Abbott & Costello-style arguments.

  “Huh?” She paused, as if sorting through the sequences of their conversation. “You know what I meant. Don’t play word games. Tell me why Roxy was so upset.”

  Zayne took a bite of his food. Stalling wouldn’t permanently keep her off him, but would allow him a small sliver of control. For added measure, he took a long drink of coffee, wishing she’d swallow a sip too, warming her up to what he had to say about her involvement with Roxy’s boutique. Asking Cody to pass the juice, he savored his last effort to hold her off. She’d get her information, but on his time schedule.

  Sparring with her was just too much fun to pass on. She was a hoot to get going, and Zayne wasn’t about to pass-up the opportunity.

  “If you must know, Mom, Roxy left in a huff because she didn’t take too kindly to me offering your help at Raeve.”

  The look on his mother’s face made him wish he had his camera. Bull’s-eye.

  “What’s the matter, Mom? Got a bitter beefsteak on your tongue?”

  “Well now, I’m sure Roxy’s angst wasn’t just about my going to work at Raeve.” She adjusted her boot-shaped, diamond-spurred pendant so it settled against the hollow of her throat. “It must have been the way you approached her. You know you have no tact with women…not that I’ve seen at least. I should have just asked her myself.”

  “Yeah, I guess you should have. Why didn’t you?” Zayne challenged.

  “I’m trying to wean you,” Kat said, then laughed at her own wit.

  Damian choked on his bacon. Cody turned his head and coughed.

  “Whatever,” Zayne mumbled, warning his friends with his eyes and the tip of his fork pointed at their heads that he didn’t think she was as funny as they evidently did.

  Zayne watched his mom pull at the waistband of her pants and gently knead her stomach. Things he’d often seen her do when she was perplexed, usually when she and his dad were having a serious disagreement.

  Since it was clear no one else was going to help him out of this, Zayne prepared his own defense strategy.

  “It wasn’t my tact or lack there of, Mom,” Zayne said then swallowed half his toast. Using the back of his hand, he caught the butter dripping onto his chin. “Roxy doesn’t want your help. She thinks she can make Raeve a success on her own.”

  “Well then, I’ll let her think she can do just that,” his mom said while clearing his plate, along with Damian and Cody’s.

  Guess we’re done eating.

  While his mom straightened up the table, she hummed, meaning her wheels spun fervently under her platinum-blonde hair. Zayne admired her tenacity even though he was afraid of what she was weaving.

  In spite of her years, his mom was still a beauty. Although, since his dad’s passing, Zayne swore she’d lost a ton of weight. He made a mental note to keep tabs on her diet.

  With the exception of her recent weight loss, every year that passed seemed to make her more stunning and spunkier still. Hell, even while doing housework and working like a dog in the saloon, she dressed to make heads turn. From her platinum crown to the three hundred plus pairs of boots she owned, not one damn thread was ever out of place or the wrong color. As a kid, he’d thought she was the most beautiful mom in Nashville. As a big kid, he still did.

  Watching her scrape their plates and fill the dishwasher, a glowing pride spread through him, warming his restless spirit.

  She’d made him proud in so many ways. She was a woman who always knew what she wanted and went after it. And no matter how much she tried to run his life, Zayne hoped he could figure out how she found the nerve to make the world dance to her tunes. Just like Roxy.

  Kat McDonald continued laying out her plan, evidently not giving a tinker’s damn at the lost looks on their faces since she’d taken away their food. “Maybe Roxy needs confidence. It’s not like her avant-garde designs are a perfect fit for Nashville. She needs a champion.”

  Now she’s thinkin’. Zayne smiled, giving himself a mental atta boy. Perhaps his plan to get her focused on something other than him would work better than he’d hoped. Well, for him anyway. He pitied Roxy. She had no idea what she was in for.

  “I’ll just give her little nudges here and there. Perhaps I can whisper into my friends’ ears about her one-of-a-kind designs and get them into the boutique.”

  His mom was too preoccupied knitting her meddle yarns to catch Zayne shaking his head in disbelief.

  “She’ll hardly know I’m doing anything.”

  “Oh, she’ll know. Trust me,” Zayne said and laughed. “You may have just met your match, Mom. So don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

  With brilliant flashes in her hazel eyes, Kat turned on him fast.

  “And I’m warning you to be nice to that girl. I like her. And you’re going to too. Trust me,” she mimicked him.

  “Care to talk tomatoes?” Cody volunteered.

  Finally, one of them had the balls to break into the conversation.

  “We’re not quite finished here, boys,” Kat said and bee-lined for the table, dishtowel in hand.

  Zayne hoped the towel wasn’t about to meet the back of his head.

  “So when do I start at Raeve?” she asked, wringing the tomato-printed, checkered cloth.

  “Is tomorrow morning soon enough?” Zayne watched her demeanor relax, a slow smile shaping her mouth. “Roxy sure as hell wasn’t thrilled, but she’ll get over it.”

  “Yes, she will.” His mom turned and disappeared into the laundry room off the kitchen, leaving the room and the three men in it breathing on their own again.

  “Isn’t Roxy the chick that rear-ended your truck?” Damian asked.

  “Yep, that’d be her.” Zayne didn’t give him any more info than he’d asked for.

  “Well, that tells us a lot,” Cody chimed in. “Spill it, dude.”

  “Nothin’ to spill when a woman hates your guts.” Zayne got up from the table and retrieved a file box from the baker’s rack along the back wall of the kitchen.

  “Well, like your Mom says, bro�
��” Damian cracked Zayne on his shoulder blade. “…if you weren’t such an ass to the ladies, they might take a liking to you.”

  “I am not an ass to women,” Zayne replied, jerking the box lid open, the idea he’d treat a woman badly like his old man did galled him. “Roxy just brings it out of me.”

  But man can she bootscoot, he thought. “I wonder why we get along on the dance floor?”

  “What was that?” Damian leaned in, applying a full court press.

  Shit. Had he just said that under his breath instead of in his head?

  “Never mind.” Zayne spread the cards on the table. “We’ve got work to do if we’re going to have a hybrid ready by August for this damn festival.”

  “You’re right. We do,” Cody agreed, taking a couple of the cards out of the stack.

  Zayne counted on Cody, like his father had, to be the brains of the tomato operation. Zayne also needed Cody’s discipline, unlike his father who had more than enough of his own, to see to a win in this lousy contest.

  Winning Nashville’s Best Heirloom Tomato Contest was all Kent McDonald had cared about. Admitting that was his Dad’s dream and not his still hurt Zayne, but the years had softened his pain. His dad had never given a rat’s ass that the rest of his family didn’t share his vision. As his son, Zayne was just expected to follow the McDonald tradition.

  Even though Zayne didn’t care about the contest while his dad was alive, his death had brought a sense of urgency Zayne couldn’t explain. Winning the title was a way he could please his father, something he hadn’t accomplished growing-up.

  “Okay, the way I see it,” Cody steered the conversation to the growing season. “Today, we need to decide which seeds to use. Then start to work the soil. Damian, I need you to repair and make new stakes. Zayne and I’ll build-up the beds.”

  “No problem,” Damian offered. “Just tell me how tall you need the stakes and how many.”

  “Will do,” Cody said.

  Zayne flipped through the cards, half-heartedly thinking about which hybrid he’d like to perfect for the contest. How could he narrow it down when none of them meant shit to him? How could he keep his focus on his dad’s dream while abandoning his own?

  He paused before passing on the Red Rocket Brandywine card. If his dad were still here, he’d go with this one. If for no other reason than to piss off the Baudlins who ran the neighboring farm. Zayne was sure Jack Baudlin, the oldest son, would enter the Baudlin Farm’s Red Rocket Brandywine. His mom had heard Jack’s dad boasting about it at the saloon. Nothing like a little vine-to-vine competition.

  “Let’s go for the Red Rocket Brandywine.” Zayne smacked the card in the middle of the table.

  “Are you sure?” Cody asked, blinking his eyes, evidently not sure he’d heard Zayne correctly. “You know that’s the one Jack Baudlin will enter. I don’t know if I feel like going head-to-head with him.”

  “C’mon, Cody,” Zayne baited him. “Where’s your sense of friendly competition?”

  “Jack’s a little too friendly, if you ask me,” Damian said. “If that family wasn’t so fiercely conservative, I’d swear that man’s gay.”

  Not that Zayne hadn’t wondered the same thing on occasion, but the chances of that were so slim, they didn’t warrant consideration. “Jack’s old man would kill both him and his lover. And you know it. Jack may be a tad effeminate, but he’s not gay.”

  “Zayne’s right, Damian,” Cody said, picking up the card with the mix notes Zayne had chosen. “How many gay tomato growers do you know?”

  “Well, if you believe the tomato’s a fruit…” Damian smacked his thigh.

  “Good thing your mom didn’t hear that,” Damian said between laughs. “You know how much she loves her gay artsy- fartsy friends. We’d be in the dog house for sure.”

  “Consider yourselves already in it, Neanderthals,” Zayne’s mom said swatting all three of their heads with her dishtowel. “At least those boys know how to treat a lady.”

  “So, the Red Rocket Brandywine it is,” Cody stated, bringing the conversation back to a respectable level while studying the cards containing the notes from the McDonald Farms’ past attempts growing that particular large heirloom tomato. He cleared his throat. “Shit, Zayne, this is the one your dad never got right. It says here he didn’t think the skin was as thin as it should be.”

  Zayne took the card and flapped it against the palm of his hand, wishing he could dismiss his uncertainties by flapping his brain. His nerves flicked under his skin, causing his arm to itch as if he had hives. “Don’t worry, my man. We’re going to figure it out.”

  “If you say so. But I sure as hell hope you plan on living and breathing the farm for the summer,” Cody warned. “Producing this monster, there won’t be much time for bootscootin’ and bar tendin’.”

  “Whatever it takes,” Zayne said, with much more conviction than he felt. “This one’s for dad, he’d —”

  Tires crunching in the gravel driveway directly outside the kitchen’s bay window interrupted him. Zayne reached his arm behind his chair and pushed back the curtain. Harry Baudlin, his son Jack, and Jack’s friend and ranch-hand Santos got out of Harry’s truck.

  “Speaking of thin-skinned. What the hell do those whiners want?” Cody demanded as they watched the trio approach the door.

  Jack waved at Zayne and smiled, earning the same from Zayne in return.

  But the Baudlin clan got nothing from Cody. Cody watered and tended the fruits of the McDonald’s labors when he wasn’t busy cooking at his family’s diner. He didn’t give a damn about the fruits next door.

  Zayne felt a surge of panic at his own lack of competitive edge against his father’s biggest competitor. The men who should have been his nemeses were nothing but fairly decent neighbors and frequent patrons of the Neon Cowboy.

  Now, if it was a dance-off…that was another matter entirely. Zayne had seen Jack on the dance floor numerous times at the saloon. The man knew some good moves. Zayne hoped he stuck to tomatoes.

  Zayne got up to open the door.

  His mom hustled out of the laundry room. “I’ll get it.”

  She whizzed past him, beating him to the door. The woman had the uncanny ability to know exactly what was going on without even being in the same room.

  “By the way, Zayne, your boots and clean socks are in the laundry room.”

  Zayne went to put them on, leaving Cody and Damian snickering. They may think he cow-towed to her demands, but he didn’t. He chose his battles carefully. Boots and clean socks weren’t worth premium billing.

  “What a nice surprise,” Kat said as she swung open the screened door, her voice dripping with forced niceties.

  When she packed it on that sweet, it was always a sinful departure from how she really felt. A talent Roxy shared with her.

  “C’mon in, neighbors.”

  Oh, boy. Zayne watched the action while he slipped on his socks and boots from the bench outside the laundry room.

  Harry tipped his hat on his way in, his face reddening. Yep, dad was right. Mr. Baudlin had a thing for his mom. Not that it mattered. She’d never give him the time of day. She’d outlived one tomato man, and even though she’d loved his dad, she’d never commit to another one.

  “Harry. Jack. Santos.” Zayne came toward them, shook their hands, and gestured toward the empty chairs at the table. “Have a seat.”

  “No. No thank you. We won’t be staying long,” Harry said, nodding his acknowledgement of Zayne and his friends.

  “So what brings you by?” Kat dazzled them with her best forced smile.

  “Well, the boys and I just wanted to check-in with you. We didn’t figure you’d be participating in the festival this year with Kent’s passing. But with the entry deadline approaching the end of the week…” He wiped his damp forehead with his hand. “We just wanted to tell you we’d miss the competition.”

  Zayne and his mom laughed simultaneously, exchanging ‘the look’ they shared when they
knew much more than their opponents.

  “Well, it appears as if you’re in luck.” Zayne looked at Harry then Jack, whose neighborly smiles faded.

  “What do you mean?” Harry stood straighter and bristled, taking a handkerchief from his shirt pocket and patting it against his forehead.

  “You won’t have to miss our competition. The guys and I were just deciding which hybrid to enter.”

  Maybe he could enjoy this game, Zayne thought. Suddenly it was getting a bunch more fun to play. He sure got a kick out of watching Harry squirm, just like his dad always had. That — their competitive barbs with the Baudlins — Zayne and his old man had in common.

  “We’re going with the Red Rocket Brandywine. What about you?” Zayne asked unable to keep a smirk from forming across his mouth.

  Jack recovered first. He took a deep breath and shifted his weight.

  “Same one. Looks like we’ll see who’s the better tomato man once and for all — a Baudlin or a McDonald,” he said, the goodwill gone from his voice.

  “Maybe,” Zayne countered, expecting Jack’s challenge but surprised by the edge in his normally genial demeanor.

  Zayne gathered the mix cards from the table and stuffed them into the box, silently chastising himself for not clearing them from view when he’d first seen the Baudlins’ truck. “Good luck. But if you’ll excuse us, we were just heading out to the greenhouses.”

  “No problem,” Jack replied, stepping out of Zayne’s way. “And good luck to you.”

  This time Jack’s tone was its ‘ole congenial self. He reached out to shake Zayne’s hand.

  Upon accepting Jack’s good sportsmanlike offer, Zayne fumbled the box, sending the cards flying through the kitchen.

  “Shit.” Zayne bent down, grabbing as many cards as he could off the floor, while Cody and Damian did the same.

  “Here you go,” Jack offered, handing him another one.

  “And here’s one more,” Harry said.

  “Thank you,” Zayne said, mentally kicking himself for being so stupid.

  His dad never would have let those cards out of his sight and was probably belting the top of his casket with his fists at his son’s ineptitude.