Emma was here in his arms and kissing him like he might be one of the heroes in those books she loved. That suited him just fine. She kissed him in a way that made him feel like all of the other stuff—the not-pretty parts of his life—didn’t matter. She kissed him as if she never wanted to stop and neither did he.
She tipped her head to the side and he took control of the kiss, pushing his tongue into her mouth, tentatively at first and when he felt the brush of hers against him a bit deeper. Her hand tightened on his shoulder and she shifted so that she was leaning against him again. He took a moment to make sure of his footing. He didn’t want to fall into the river with her in his arms.
He pulled her more fully against him, her breasts cushioned against his chest, her hips on top of his erection, and he deepened the kiss even more. All those months of waiting for the right moment had felt so long but now that she was in his arms, he decided it had been precisely the right amount of time.
Emma wasn’t like anyone else. She needed time to feel that he was what she wanted…what she needed, and he was in a position to do that. He ignored the niggling thought in the back of his mind that he had other issues that needed to be sorted out.
He had no time to dwell on that when he was holding Emma. Kissing Emma and getting turned on. He didn’t want to let her go but this was their first date.
First. Date.
He had to step back. Be cool. Have some of the chill that Braden always teased him for having around her.
But it was gone. Totally and completely disappeared as she broke the kiss, lifting her head so that their eyes met. In her eyes were a myriad of emotions that he couldn’t read but at the same time seemed to mirror what he felt. The hope that the passion between them would last. That feeling of excitement at the newness of this and of course the underlying fear that it would end like every other romantic entanglement he’d had.
“Emma…”
She put her fingers over his lips. “Don’t. You don’t have to say anything. I don’t want to dissect this. You kissed better than I was expecting.”
He quirked one eyebrow at her. What had she been expecting from him?
“Dang it. I wish I hadn’t said that. You make me forget to think,” she said.
He started laughing. “Seems only fair since you do the same thing to me.”
He turned toward the river and helped her over to the dry part of the riverbank where they could sit and dangle their feet in the river. This time of year, the flow wasn’t too fast and heavy the way it would be after spring storms. And the water was cool after the heat of the day.
“Thank you, Red,” she said.
“What for?”
“This day. I have really enjoyed myself and you,” she said.
“I have too. Would I be pushing it if I—”
His phone pinged and he broke off as he pulled it from his pocket. Real life was intruding. “Excuse me, I have to take this.”
He got up from the bank and walked back toward their shoes and out of earshot of Emma.
Mutual respect is essential for a happy relationship.
~lesson learned from Jane Austen’s Pride & Prejudice
Chapter Four
Emma turned to watch Red scramble back toward their shoes and picnic stuff. From the look on his face, the call was urgent, and she could respect that. He hadn’t been on his phone the entire time they were together, so she wasn’t that bothered by it. She leaned back on her hands and looked up at the sky. It was so clear and blue today. The sun was hot on her face, but she’d applied SPF forty-five sunscreen before she’d left her house and figured she was protected.
She tried to let the sky capture her imagination as it sometimes did, but it did not work today. All she could think about was Red. He seemed like an open book. Everyone in town knew him and knew his story. He’d dropped out of high school because he struggled to read. He’d inherited the outfitters from his father and had taken over running it full time more than five years ago. His mother was a famous sommelier on the West Coast and had rarely been in Last Stand when Red was growing up.
She guessed that didn’t make him an open book. She’d never asked about his mom; frankly, she figured he wouldn’t be open to talking about it. Was something up with his folks? She pulled her feet out of the water and pushed herself to stand. She wished she’d worn a darker colored sundress. The grass and bits of dirt clung to the fabric of her light green dress and she brushed them off before making her way back up the bank toward Red.
He saw her coming and just gave her a short nod before turning and walking up the path further away from her. Whatever it was, he needed privacy and was still in the heat of the conversation.
She took the time to put her shoes back on and went to their picnic stuff and fumbled in the basket for her tablet. She never went anywhere without a book and she had been beyond happy when electronic readers had been introduced. Of course, the story she was reading wasn’t keeping her attention like she wished it would. She kept looking over at Red who was pacing up and down and finally angrily slammed his thumb down on his phone before shoving it in his pocket and turning to go and get his shoes.
She put her tablet away as he approached.
“Is everything okay?”
“Yeah. Sorry about that. I need to get back to town,” he said.
“That’s okay. I promised Memaw I’d come by and help her with some books she found in the attic. She’s redoing her bookshelves.”
Red nodded and scooped up the picnic basket and blanket. Gone was the guy who seemed to have all the time in the world and in his place was a man fixated on something. But what? She had no rights where he was concerned. They’d had one date and shared a kiss. That didn’t even make her a girlfriend. But she was curious nonetheless.
“Are you sure you don’t want to talk about whatever is going on?” she asked. “I’m a pretty good listener.”
He stopped walking, turning to face her with one hand on his hip. “I wish I could, Emma, but this isn’t something I’m ready to share.”
“Okay,” she said, tucking one arm around her waist before she realized what she was doing and let it drop to her side.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I don’t mean to shut you out it’s just…”
He trailed off and she realized he must be thinking what she had been earlier. “We’re just casual friends. It’s okay. You don’t have to tell me. I was only saying if you needed to talk then I’m here.”
He nodded. “Thanks for that. Where can I drop you in town?”
“At Memaw’s if you don’t mind. I walked over to the outfitters earlier… If you need to you can just drop me there and I can make my way to her house,” Emma said.
The longer she was with Red, the more intrusive it felt to her. She wondered if she had pushed too hard. She had been trying to be nice.
“You know I didn’t mean—”
“Emma, please, I’m just not a talker,” he said.
“Fine.”
She got into the cab of his truck and this time the music didn’t distract her. Even though Tim McGraw’s “Live Like You Were Dying” was playing, which was one of her favorite songs ever, she refused to sing it out loud. She pulled herself back into her shell. The hope she’d felt when they’d driven to their picnic was gone. It wasn’t like he owed her anything—she didn’t want that. But he’d been short with her. And so different than he’d been, and it made her question which Red was his true self. Was it the man making the romantic gesture or the man who closed down and rushed her back to town?
And really why was he interested in her anyway? They had nothing in common. Had she really thought that this was something special?
That kiss—
No. She wasn’t going to think about that.
Lust.
That was all it had been, and she’d dealt with lust before. Well not really but sort of and well enough for her to know that she wasn’t going to let it take control of her life. Red was clearly going
through something and wanted her to have no part of it. He pulled into her memaw’s driveway and she reached for the picnic basket, but he put his hand out as if to stop her.
She jerked her hand away. “Thanks for a nice afternoon.”
She opened her door and hopped down then reached back for her stuff.
“Emma—”
“Don’t. I’ll see you around,” she said, closing the door and walking away. She didn’t even look back when her grandmother opened the door and reached around her to wave at Red. Seemed to her as if Red had made the decision of whether she should get involved with him for her. And she wished she could say she was happy not to have to risk a broken heart but she knew that was a lie.
*
Red drove away from Emma knowing he’d screwed up but unsure how to fix it at the moment. He had to drive all the way to Austin to talk to his attorney this afternoon and before he did that he had to check in at the shop and make sure that everything was still going smoothly.
His father had often said that regrets didn’t happen in the moment but took years to ferment and honestly most of his life Red hadn’t really understood what the old man had been trying to tell him—until January. When he’d gotten that call and everything had changed and yet nothing had.
All that changed was that he now knew something that he hadn’t before. He was still the same man as he’d been before that, and if he’d ever had any doubt about his own flaws, they’d been brought into startling view. Except now he was a father. He wanted to be a dad. He wanted to hold Molly and have her know him.
But the Odems and their attorneys had a point. He wasn’t ready to be a father. Just having provided the sperm didn’t make him qualified to be a father. He’d never felt less than anyone else even though he’d dropped out of high school. That kind of learning had never worked for him, probably because of his reading issues.
He’d always been better on his own. Even his dad was pretty much a loner. And it had never bothered him that he’d lived with his dad and only saw his mom during the summer on trips to visit her in France or California or wherever she’d been working. She’d always been home on his birthday and at Christmas and though their family wasn’t like everyone else’s he’d grown up surrounded by love.
His parents had supported him no matter what. But he had been able to own this newest change—Molly. He knew getting custody of Molly was one problem he had to sort out for himself. Not knowing about Molly, not being part of her life was a screwup that he had no idea how to fix. Every step he tried to take to fix it just seemed to make things worse. And now there was Emma.
He’d asked her out with the belief that his life was going to be getting back on track. Back to what it had been, but now there was a wrinkle. He shook his head and had to pull his truck off the road. Wrinkle. What the fuck was wrong with him?
His life was on a serious collision course and he had no idea where it would go next, which wasn’t like him. He needed to regroup and get things back on track. He’d had a setback and he’d let that set him back with Emma too. He liked her and things had been going well until the call.
He just didn’t do well when stuff didn’t go to his plan. He knew that. He had a bit of a temper and he’d worked on controlling it. Mainly by walking away, which was what he’d tried to do with Emma. Not from her, but from his anger at another setback and he’d ended up snapping at her and hurting her.
Maybe it was better this way.
But then he remembered that kiss. He couldn’t walk away from that. From her. There was so much more than just a spark between them, and he’d been waiting too long for someone like Emma to just walk away.
He needed to think, and he had nothing but highway between here and Austin to do some thinking. He put his truck in gear and pulled back onto the highway. He used the voice command on his phone to order a dozen yellow roses for Emma and he wanted to be eloquent, but he was still just Red. So, he kept it simple. Said he was sorry and asked for them to be delivered that evening.
Then he called Braden.
“Hey,” Braden said. “How’d your date with Emma go?”
“I screwed it up,” Red said.
“How? Can you fix it? Do you want to?” Braden asked.
“Got a call from the lawyer. Lori’s parents have asked the judge for an extension on their counter suit and he granted it,” Red said. “I didn’t want to talk about it with Emma and I snapped at her.”
“Damn, I’m sorry about that, Red. But on the other hand, it does give you more time to get your house finished. About Emma, did she overhear?”
“No,” he said. “She was just trying to say she’d be willing to talk to me, but really how was that going to go? I say I had a one-night stand during Mardi Gras two years ago in New Orleans and this year found out it resulted in a kid and I might never get to see her because…because I’m me.”
“Don’t do that. I hate when you do that. You’re going to win this case. Those people don’t know you any more than Lori did. You’re going to get this settled and before you know it your daughter will be here. Emma will understand.”
Red knew that Braden was right. Emma was a very compassionate woman, but he was afraid he might have ruined things already. He didn’t want to give up on her but maybe it was better until he got this all sorted out if he just let things cool down.
“I know. I’m not going to let them keep her from me,” Red said. “I’m heading to Austin now. If I have to drive all the way to Charleston and tell them in person I will.”
“That’s more like it,” Braden said. “What can I do?”
“Nothing for now. Wait, the contractor is supposed to come by this afternoon for a walk-through. Can you swing by and do that? There’s no way I’ll be back in time.”
“I’ve got you covered,” Braden said. “Just take care of things in Austin.”
“Thanks, Bray.” Braden was like a brother to him. All his life there had been two men he’d counted on: his father and Braden. They were the ones who knew the stuff he didn’t share with anyone else. Everyone saw him as big, strong, confident, and he liked that. He was that. But when he needed to let his guard down…well, he wished he could have done that with Emma but it was different with her. He was working on letting her in but after today that might never happen.
*
“Memaw said you were rude to Red,” Amelia said as she and Emma were watching Lane run around the square in the middle of town. Cal was working late at Outlaw Tequila, Lea had to run over to Whiskey River for a charity she supported and Lancey was working a shift over at the police station, so Amelia was babysitting her nephew.
“I wasn’t rude,” Emma said. When her sister had called and asked if she wanted to hang out, Emma had jumped at the chance. For once books weren’t providing the distraction that they always had. She couldn’t figure Red out. She’d been testing him on their date a little bit and until he’d gotten that call…things had been, well, almost perfect. “I’d already said goodbye to him.”
“You didn’t turn and wave,” Amelia said. “Just letting you know that she came by Yippee Ki Yay after you left and told Mom and me about it. I’m pretty sure she’ll bring it up to Delilah as soon as she sees her.”
“Great. I told her I didn’t want to talk about it.”
“She knows—that’s why she’s telling everyone,” Amelia pointed out. “Memaw wants us all settled down and married. She let slip to me the other day that she’s worried about you and Dee.”
“I’m worried about her and her weird taxidermized dog collection, but you don’t see me talking behind her back about it,” Emma pointed out. “I knew I should have said no when Red asked me out. Or suggested we meet over in Austin instead of here for a date. Everyone in this town has an opinion on everything.”
“That’s part of the charm of Last Stand,” Amelia said. “I remember when I moved to New York I missed seeing the faces of people I knew, and I was so lonely there.”
Emma reached out
and hugged her sister. Amelia had moved to New York when she was sixteen to start modeling after she’d learned that Jasper Corbyn wasn’t her biological father. It had been a shock to all three of the sisters but had hit Amelia understandably the hardest. Emma had never understood why their parents had kept it a secret for so long.
They’d had to tell them the truth when Amelia’s biological father—the country music star Jax Williams—had a son and needed Amelia’s bone marrow to try to save him from a medical condition. It had been a shock. Amelia had just started to forgive their mom for keeping the truth, but Emma had always thought it had been Daddy’s fault too. He’d lied as much as Mama had and though they were still a close-knit family that lie had been woven into the fabric of who they were.
Emma knew that it was something she should let go but she’d struggled with it. She suspected that Delilah did as well, which had led her to leave home and go to California to cook and then to Dallas before coming back home. Amelia’s anger had been justified and when she’d left no one had thought about how it had affected her and Dee, but they’d struggled after their sister had left.
“I missed you,” Emma said. “Delilah and I fought a lot at first. I’m glad you’re back home. I know you weren’t sure you’d be staying when you came home last year but we were all hoping you would.”
“I know you were. I just felt so…well like a sixteen-year-old instead of like a thirty-five-year-old, you know? I was stuck in those same emotions that I’d never dealt with and I think Mom was too. Did y’all ever work it out?”
“No,” Emma said. “We were here so we just went on like nothing had happened. I sort of wanted to talk but every time I tried to bring you up Mama would start crying and then Daddy would get mad—you know he hates it when we make her cry.”
“Yeah, I do. But still. I wonder if it’s too late for us to have a family therapy session?” Amelia asked.
“I don’t think Delilah will go and I’m pretty sure the folks don’t want to discuss it either. They are so happy to have you back home. I don’t imagine they want to do anything that will rock the boat.”
Red Hot Texan Page 4