"Yeah," I agreed, but let out a sigh afterwards.
"Tequila's not gonna cut it," Kelly declared.
"Neither will chocolate chip ice-cream," Gen added, a little disappointedly.
"Chick flick movie night?" Abi suggested, receiving a snort of disgust from Eva.
"A round of Guitar Hero on the X-Box then?" Kelly asked, wiggling her eyebrows at the cowgirl.
"You guys have no imagination at all, do you?" Eva announced in a slight twang, sitting forward on her chair.
"We have imagination," Abi defended immediately.
"I've got a helluva lot of imagination, sister," Kelly argued. "Enough for all of us, I guaran-damn-tee you."
"She's not interested in your type of imagination, Kels," Gen said on a delicate laugh, which soon became a snort.
"Actually, we could throw a little of Kelly's imagination into the plan," Eva declared and all the women, including me, stopped what we were doing and stared.
"OK, I'm interested," Kelly said, the first to blink back to life.
"You would be," Abi remarked. "It's your imagination that's given Eva ideas."
"Well, shall we listen to what the good cowgirl has to say?" Kelly shot back. "Or do you want to discuss how inspiring my imagination can be?"
"Does Fred think you've got a good imagination?" Abi asked pointedly.
"Who's Fred?" Gen demanded, but was ignored by both women.
I noticed Eva sit back in her chair, readjust her hat and close her eyes again. She'd undoubtedly been here before and knew when to take a moment to snooze, bypassing all the drama. It would have been hilarious if I wasn't so upset by it all.
"Fred loves my imagination," Kelly was saying. "In fact it was my imagination that attracted the man to me in the first place."
"Ah," Abi said excitedly, "so he's an adventurous lover then?"
"Pfft!" Kelly exclaimed, as even Eva opened her eyes to hear the next words out of her mouth. "That man thrives off adventure." Then she realised what she'd admitted, probably more than she'd intended, as it only added fuel to Abi's fire-quest to find out who the mysterious fifth man hooked on Kelly's line was. "And that's all I'll say about that," she finished, turning her attention to Eva. "Your plan, Evangeline?"
"You sure, cookie?" the cowgirl drawled. "Seems to me you've got something on your mind."
"Not you too," Kelly groaned, flouncing back into her seat with an attractive pout.
Just as Abi sat up straighter, pointed her index finger towards her terrible twin and declared, "I'm watching you, and now so is Eva. Your secret doesn't stand a chance against the both of us."
"Abi," Kelly said with a roll of her eyes, "you watch way too many teen dramas."
"There's nothing at all wrong with Glee," Abi shot back.
Gen snorted, Kelly arched an eyebrow and Eva said, "They never do Country."
"They sang a Carrie Underwood song once," Abi argued.
"Yeah, once," Eva pointed out. "How many shows have there been now, cookie?"
Abi ducked her head.
"Enough Glee, let's get serious," Kelly declared, then chuckled at her word play. "What's the plan?"
Everyone turned their attention back to the cowgirl, who tipped her hat back on her head and smiled. It was a little mischievous and calculating, and had no place on the pretty woman's face, I thought.
"Simple. The men all think they call the shots, don't they?" she announced and we all nodded rigorously. "Well, I say we go get this book thingie and in the process have a bit of fun."
"You can't be serious," Gen said, sounding stunned.
"Ooh, I like it," Abi and Kelly both offered, living up to their terrible twins moniker.
"Well, Marie. What do ya think?" Eva asked. "Kill two birds with one stone, isn't that how the saying goes? Grab the ledger, and show Pierce you're not sitting around the house waiting for him to see sense. Nothing tells a cowboy that you mean business, than taking the bull by the horns."
And maybe it was her choice of another overused saying that did it. But Pierce had told me to grab the bull by the horns too. Hearing it again, this time from a genuine looking cowgirl, made me want to do just that. But, I was not a young innocent without experience and responsibilities. I had a five year old daughter to think about and real life memories of what the bad guys could do.
"I don't think so," I replied, and the whole room deflated like a popped balloon. "At least, I don't think we can do it alone."
Eva raised her eyebrows.
"Now, did I say we wouldn't have reinforcements?" she asked.