Page 13 of Texas Made
“I’d already planned to go there. Hmm. I’ll have to get two pair. One for riding and one for dress. Want to go with me?”
“Sure. I could use a new pair of boots too. I’ll let Marshall know so he can take care of things here if he needs to.”
“Okay, that takes care of boots. But what about the dress?”
“That’s going to be harder. You may need to go somewhere else. Whiskey River doesn’t have a lot of clothes shops. The only one we have is Fallen Angels Lingerie.”
Jaclyn laughed. “That’s no help. Wait a minute. I did bring a black cocktail dress. Would that work?”
“I don’t see why it wouldn’t. You could dress it up with some jewelry. Unless you didn’t bring that either.”
“I didn’t bring anything to dress it up. All I have are some earrings and a couple of necklaces and bracelets that I wear a lot. But I’m sure I can find something to suit.”
“We can stop by the jewelry shop too. They have costume jewelry as well as the real thing.”
“Sounds good.”
“I’m not sure what I’ll wear. Assuming I go.”
“Go call Nate right now.”
“I can do it later.”
“Nope. We’re not leaving until you call him.”
Damaris made a face but she got out her phone and pressed a button. “He’s probably not even—Nate? Hi, this is Damaris.” She walked away and Jaclyn could see her laughing and talking. Interesting. This was the guy she’d tried to set Jaclyn up with. She seemed awfully comfortable with him.
A few minutes later, Damaris returned. “He’s going with me. I said I was surprised he didn’t have a date but he said he’d planned to go stag before I asked him.”
“Have you and Nate dated in the past?”
“Not really. We went out a couple of times when he first moved here but it was never serious. So we just became friends.”
“You have him on speed dial.”
“So? I have a lot of people on speed dial.”
Speed dial is for people you call a lot, Jaclyn thought, but let it go. “Did you sleep together?”
“No, I told you it was casual.”
“That doesn’t mean you didn’t get together.”
“Well, we didn’t. He’s a friend,” Damaris repeated, a bit more emphatically than Jaclyn thought the question called for.
Jaclyn wondered just how much of a “friend” Nate was. She’d never met him so maybe she’d find out at the ball.
*
Whiskey River washome to the world-famous Kelly Boots. The factory and corporate offices were west of town, a huge, sprawling complex that employed a boatload of people from the area. They also had a storefront in town on the square, which was where Jaclyn and Damaris went in search of boots. Jaclyn stepped inside and fell instantly in love. Boots of every color and description lined the walls. Men’s, women’s, kids’ boots, cowboy boots, work boots and hiking boots filled the entire store.
“Why have I never been here before?” she asked Damaris. “It’s like the Wonderland of Boots.”
Damaris laughed. “We didn’t come into town much back then. We weren’t old enough to drink so when we came to town we ate at the Diner.”
“Right. I remember that.”
“There weren’t a lot of shops like there are now. Although Kelly Boots has been around forever. But we were poor college kids so we avoided temptation. Or I did, anyway.”
