Dinner was passed pleasantly enough, much better than the last four years of dinners that Amy had grown accustomed to. The whole dining room was a mass of conversations held across the table, across the room, even across the house! Laughter and warmth was so heavy in the air, that to an unacquainted soul, Amy suddenly felt like her life had been empty without these new friends.
Cowboy after cowboy had strode into the house, and she had been pleasantly surprised by the drop of countenance in each handsome ranch hand's face as they evaluated her. She'd been hit on plenty of times before, her Irish genetics allowed for that, but she'd learned long ago that they never meant anything, and never went anywhere. From these wranglers though, it seemed different. Was everyone in Texas this genuine?
So now she was seated at a giant table, with benches in addition to chairs, with twenty or more people. Amy couldn't begin to imagine how Jill cooked for all these men. Virgil sat at the head of the table, with Jill on his right, of course, and on his left the chair was empty, supposedly for a niece that would be joining them shortly. Amy was about halfway down the table, with a Mordecai across from her, a Joey and a Hank beside him, and that insipid dripping cowboy Luke next to her. On her other side was an empty chair, reserved for Levi, whoever that was.
She kept looking for the cowboy that had been by the barn, but so far, no show.
Amy was only half-listening to Mordecai and Hank arguing the finer points of how to properly pull up the cows and rotate the pasture. Apparently, though the ranch was vast, the cows that were kept on it were moved throughout the different pastures regularly, and although to her August was so unbearably hot, in Texas, it would be considered fall weather with the onset of October, and time to rotate the cows once again.
Hank tried to explain to her the importance of doing this, to give the grass a chance to rest and allow new growth, and keep the stock tanks full and healthy.
Amy nodded at all this, feigning ignorance. She had rotated horses on and off pastures for years, but knew better than to argue with a seasoned ranch hand.
They were, after all, from different worlds.
Luke kept trying to offer her more food, talk to her about herself, though he constantly would refer to his own person in an air of making a great impression, though his manners only served to put her off further.
Joey stayed mostly quiet, though he caught her eye a couple of times and smiled understandingly, if not sympathetically, at her. She was about to excuse herself, not able to take the insistent conversation of Luke, when she heard the chair beside her pulled out.
She looked at Luke's face to see it drawn, and pissed off. That raised her apprehension some. She turned about in her chair slowly, and sucked in her breath so audibly that all four of her dinner partners looked at her hard, eyebrows raised and a smirk on their tanned faces.
The sexy cowboy by the barn looked down at her, an arrogant smirk on his face as well, his eyes appraising her obviously and without shame. She wrinkled her nose a little at the egotism of it.
She stood up, slowly, and came to nearly his height, which gave her a sense of satisfaction; she was only a couple of inches shorter than him. However, that put her almost level with his eyes, which made her feel a little less confident in her earlier thought.
He took her hand slowly in his, but firmly, and tipped his hat just a little before taking it off.
"Levi, pleased to know ya."
Her eyes almost bugged out of her head. This was the cowboy supposed to show her to her cabin? Go figure.
"Amy, it's nice to meet you as well."
He held her hand a moment longer than necessary, and the effect was electrifying. She thought he felt it too, but his eyes gave nothing away, and she pulled her hand away and sat.
He sat only after her, incredible manners for a mere ranch hand.
Pulling up his chair to the table, Levi immediately began piling the generous helpings onto his plate. She watched him, enamored for a moment, but the chattering around her had begun again, and she had merely to sit and listen as they all tried to pull her into five different conversations happening at once.
She felt something against her leg, and a fever shot up from her thigh to her throat, and her cheeks flushed an incredible shade of scarlet, which was fairly obvious on her fair complexion. She looked over at Levi sitting next to her, but he was eating, and didn't seem to notice her in the slightest.
His hand, however, squeezed just above her knee ever so slightly in acknowledgement, and she flushed still deeper at the liberty he was taking in touching her, only knowing her name. Good manners indeed!
She should've pushed him away, protested in some fashion, but the feeling he was giving her in just a mere touch was so addicting so immediately, she didn't try to fight it.
Luke was prattling on about something, and she realized he must have supposed her coloring for him, for he grew more bold and arrogant as he spoke, though no less complimentary, and had she been of a lesser inclination, she would've been flattered and even silly over such attention.
She realized that Levi's hand was drawing her out of this ridiculous conversation and possible inclination on purpose, his arrogance and confidence in his prowess was infuriating, and to be in the middle of such a caveman dispute, though unknown by one party, was so irritating that she almost stood up to take leave of the table.
