She doesn’t sound that drunk anymore. Or I’m sobering up. I try to stand, but I sway. I sit back down. Nope. Not sobering up. Jason kneels in front of his grandmother and they speak in mumbled words. I can’t understand any of them. I drop to the cushion behind me as far as it allows. I’m in a chair. Fancy how I know that right now. Maybe I am sobering up. Suddenly, Jason leans over me, hands on the arms of the chair. “Are you okay?”
How sweet. I think he cares about me. “As long as I don’t walk.”
“I’m staying.”
I stroke his cheek. “You’re really so very sweet, but you see, Shelley has a man. She might forget that if you stay. Go please. We’re drunk, not dying.”
“Go, Jason!” his grandmother calls out from someplace in the universe. Or the room. I think she’s in the room.
His eyes narrow on me. “If I call, you need to answer.”
“If I could find my phone, I’d say sure, but sorry. No go.”
He hands it to me. I have no idea where he found it or when he found it. “Thank—you.”
“Answer. Understand?”
“Yes, Master Cowboy, or is it Master J? Flying J? Master Player.” I crinkle my nose. “No. That has negative connotations.”
“Jason. Just Jason.”
“Not asshole?”
“No.”
“Asshole cowboy?”
“Am I being an asshole?”
“I’m drunk, but I’m pretty sure you were, right up until Martha kicked your ass.”
His lips twitch. “Is that right?”
“Mhmm.”
“Call me if you need me.”
“Is that a trick question?” I ask.
“It wasn’t a question.” He pushes away from me and stands, looks around the room, grunts, and shouts out, “Call me, Grandma!” before he leaves in a whiff of good smells. He doesn’t smell bad after working all day. I turn to watch him exit and give his Wrangler-worthy ass a thumbs-up as well.
I turn around to find Martha helping Shelley back to the living room. “Were you just looking at my grandson’s butt?” Martha asks, sitting Shelley down on the couch.
“Just now? Just now, I was looking at the door he shut.”
Martha sits down as well. Shelley groans and plops to her side. “I hope someone looked at his ass for me. I may never see it again.”
Martha’s eyes meet mine, a smile in their depths. I’m not so drunk that I don’t see that knowing look. She knows I surveyed Jason’s backside. I decide to take the drunk-chick way out of being forced into this. I fall back on the cushion and pretend to pass out. Then—everything starts spinning, and I shut my eyes, and I think I might just do it for real.
…
I wake to sunlight and the smell of food. I sit up and groan with the ache in my head and the punch in my belly. Said belly rolls with a queasy certainty that I will throw up and then actually growls. Hungover me is apparently a very confused me. Am I sick or hungry? I glance toward the kitchen to find Shelley sitting in front of a stack of pancakes. “Morning, sunshine.”
“Morning,” Martha adds, holding up a spatula. “Come eat. The pancakes will absorb the alcohol.”
I scowl. “How are you so chipper right now? How are you cooking? How old are you?”
She laughs. “I didn’t drink as much as you two. It made me so damn sleepy I fell asleep.” She motions me forward. “Come here, honey. Let me feed you before I head out to Pilates.”
I stand and the bathroom calls to me. So does my phone, which buzzes with a text message, and I glance down to find a conversation with Jason that I don’t remember having. A naughty conversation. One particular text garners my attention: I might just have to bend you over my knee. I’m not sure which one of us said that. I hope like hell it was him, because if it was me, I’m packing up and leaving.
There’s honking from outside. “Oh, that’s my ride,” Martha says, setting a plate on the island. “I’m going to be late to Pilates class. Evie, a friend of mine, is running me home to change. You can still go, Jessica, but I didn’t think you’d be up to it. We can swing back by—”
“No,” I say quickly. “I can start next week.”
She gives me a small smile. “Next week, honey. I’ll still see you at the house this afternoon?”
“Yes. Absolutely.”
With that, she hurries to the door and leaves. The thunder of the door shutting crashes into my brain with a sound that is unnerving. “I need to go, too,” Shelley says, and only then do I realize that she’s holding Kelly. “I just don’t want to leave her.” Tears spill from her eyes. “I’m so glad she’ll be with you.”
Her tears win over my sickness and I rush toward her, remarkably steady considering all the liquor. We embrace, with Kelly right there with us, and we chat it out. Is she sure about leaving? Am I sure about staying? In the end, she decides to leave and I decide to stay. There are more tears, and then it’s me, Kelly, and well, it’s me and Kelly. And pancakes. After a trip to pee that is long overdue, I shower, offer kitty cuddles, and manage to dress in my new work wardrobe of jeans and boots, complemented by a T-shirt. I then warm up the pancakes, make coffee, and sit down with my computer to try to work while eating.
That’s when I remember the text messages. Oh God, the text messages. I grab my phone and start reading, cheeks blushing:
Him: How much do you remember?
Me: About?
Him: What I did to you last night?
Me: I’m drunk. I remember nothing. Come do it again.
Him: My grandmother is there with you, remember?
Me: Is that who that is?
Him: Yes, it is. Which means that I can’t fuck you tonight. Another reason you shouldn’t have gotten my grandmother drunk.
Me: Good point.
Him: Do you want to know what I’d do to you if I was there?
Me: No. Not now.
Him: Why?
Me: Your grandmother is watching me right now. She’ll ask questions.
Him: Then don’t make faces.
Me: Then this has to be really boring sexting.
Him: The next time I see you, I’m going to lick your…
That asshole didn’t finish the sentence. I read the messages again, sip my coffee, and power up my computer only to start laughing. On my computer screen is the book outline for The Truth About Cowboys that Shelley typed as Martha dictated. There’s a special note to me from Shelley that reads: First, you must date enough to find the right cowboy. Yes, that means you, Jessica. I jab at a pancake and take a bite. I don’t remember that special note. Apparently she added that in for my review this morning. I continue reading, reviewing our silly list of what makes a good cowboy to include a nice ass and smelling good. My God, we were so drunk.
Feeling rather cheeky, I prepare a series of funny graphic text messages to send to Shelley, including screenshots of the pages she typed. Right as I’m pasting the graphic and screenshot into the message window, footsteps sound on the porch. I jump to my feet as a loud knock sounds. “Who is it?” I call out.
“I’ll give you three guesses,” Jason replies, his voice deep and sexy even through the heavy wooden door.
I grab my phone, and I don’t mean to, but I glance at the sexting exchange I had with him last night. There’s another knock. I squeeze my legs together and pat my hot cheeks, embarrassment and arousal flooding them and more intimate parts of my body with heat. I don’t sext. The truth about cowboys? They corrupt you and I’m not sure that’s a bad thing. I set my phone down and then pick it back up and slide it into my pocket. If I’m holding the phone, I can’t pretend I don’t remember the messages. I hurry toward the door and inhale a deep breath before pulling it open.
He’s there, of course, the man who texted me naughty things, one arm on the doorframe, one leg crossed over the other. Hi
s eyes are warm and filled with mischief. “How do you feel?”
“Not as well as my friend who left for Dallas already and your grandmother who went to Pilates. My God, I need to eat more cookies if that’s what they do to her. She made pancakes. You want some?”
“I believe I do,” he says, pulling me close and kissing me firmly on the mouth, my body igniting with the connection. “A hell of a lot more,” he adds roughly, “but I’ll take some pancakes, too.” He turns me toward the kitchen, and as I move forward, feeling his eyes on my backside, I remember the moment his grandmother busted me for looking at his Wranglers. Okay, his butt in the Wranglers.
“Speaking of Dallas,” he says, joining me in the kitchen as I put a stack of pancakes in the microwave and hand him a cup of coffee—a hot cup of coffee, which is bad idea considering the temperature in the room right now.
“What about Dallas?” I ask, deciding to save my complaints for later.
“I have to go to the city for a meeting.”
He joins me on this side of the island and grabs the creamer from the fridge, adding it to his cup, and then replacing it. “I’m headed out this evening. Can I trust you not to get my grandmother drunk again while I’m gone?”
“Hey, your grandmother was the instigator and I don’t think she was that drunk at all. Is everything okay? Is this trip sudden?”
“It’s a regular thing,” he says, but he doesn’t say everything is okay. I want to push on that point, but the microwave goes off and the moment just doesn’t feel right.
I grab his plate and he sits down in the spot next to my plate. I join him and my heart starts to race as I spy my computer screen right there in front of us. That text message I was about to send is pulled up and the graphic is displayed. I’d rather not explain the “How to Date a Cowboy” stuff to Jason. He’s already suspicious. He’ll think I really am writing a book about him. I pull my MacBook toward me and close it, relief washing over me as the silly game I was playing with the girls is still safely with the girls.
His cell phone buzzes, giving me a welcome reprieve to take a moment to recover from my heart attack. “You texted me while I’m sitting right next to you?” he asks, dark brows furrowed.
My heart attack is back. Oh my God. I pasted that message to Jason, not Shelley, and somehow just hit send.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Jessica…
I stand there, holding Jason’s phone, after I literally snatched it right out of his hand. Yep. I did that. The hungover, pancake-eating, mud-puddle-diving divorce attorney who knows how to win a case. I don’t, however, clearly know how to win a man. Not that I’m trying. “That message was not for you,” I say, determined to delete it before he reads it, but I don’t get far.
He snags my belt loop, tugs me closer, and the phone is gone, as is the man. He’s given me his back and he’s reading, no doubt assuming it’s a sexting message I chickened out of sending. His shoulders bunch. My belly knots. The countdown to launch, AKA his anger, ticks by in my head. Five. Four. Three. Two…
He turns to face me. “What the fuck is this?”
We have blast off.
“Drunk joking around,” I say. “That’s all.”
“Are you writing a romance novel?” he demands.
I shift from one foot to another. “Shelley suggested—”
“That’s a yes,” he finishes for me.
“It’s not a yes, but Shelley thinks that if I were to write a romance, I’d soften my otherwise cynical approach to the divorce guide.” That’s not exactly how she’d worded it, but close enough.
“Date as many cowboys as necessary to find the right one?” he says in rebuttal, as if the silly joke between girls is ammunition.
“I don’t think that’s exactly what was said, but again, it was all drunk girl jokes.”
“Must have a nice ass,” he says, reading from the message. “Must smell good? Are you serious with this shit?”
“No. No, we weren’t serious. I just said those are jokes, Jason. Jokes. Jokes. Jokes.” I open my mouth to tell him that, in fact, his silly, wonderful grandma made all of it up, but I quickly snap my mouth shut. She might not want him to know. “It was a joke,” I repeat. “That’s the point. It was—”
“Don’t say that one more time. Am I cowboy number one or ten? How deep am I into this experiment? Did I give you enough kink for the sex scenes or do you need a do-over?”
I open my mouth and shut it again. “I don’t know what to say to you right now.”
“It’s a legitimate question. Do you need a do-over to get the details of our intimate moments on the page?”
“You’re overreacting. That’s your thing right? Overreacting?”
“I have a ranch to run and problems to chase. I don’t need publicity. I don’t need a book written about me and my men. I don’t need you distracting my men by shaking your ass for them to get a date.”
“Shaking my ass? Did you really just say that to me?”
“If you become a problem for me, Jessica, I don’t care how much my grandmother likes you, you’ll be gone. I’m not a research project. I’m your landlord and not a damn thing else. Don’t forget it.” He starts walking, clearly intending to leave.
Angry now, bursting with anger actually, with an added punch of embarrassment, I whirl on him. “Okay, landlord. My air doesn’t work. It’s hot.”
He pauses at the door and glances at me over his shoulder. “You’re lucky you have air at all. Read the lease. I did.” He turns away and with an added mumble says, “Your car’s out of the mud.” He exits and slams the door behind him.
“I did read the lease! It says air conditioning!” I yell, even though I technically don’t have a legitimate lease. And I also know that if it was valid, the units in the windows would meet the air conditioning requirement, which is why I do all I can do. I grab a fork and throw it at the door. It lands in front of me, like I didn’t even throw it. I can’t even throw something successfully. My fingers dive through my hair and I sit down at the island to stuff my face with pancakes, but I can’t. My fork is on the floor. So I pick one up with my damn hand and take a bite, because why not? There’s no one to see me naked right now. Certainly not my ex and certainly not an ex-pro ball player who’s also an asshole cowboy.
I am writing a romance novel. It’s called How to Get Happily Divorced.
…
I have no idea how long I sleep, but apparently sitting down on the couch with my computer in my lap, in a hot room, after drinking the night before, works better than melatonin. That’s where I’m at when Martha calls me: on the couch, asleep, with my computer in my lap. I navigate the conversation and plan to join her at the main house about as successfully as a two-year-old, but it gets the job done.
With just enough time to caffeinate, I do just that, shaking off the sleep and booze, but not the anger at Jason, evident in the few paragraphs I managed to write before napping. I glance at my work and find phrases like: Relationships come and go. Nothing is forever. Live, don’t love. All of which have me shutting my computer and deciding that I’m not writing anything else today. And maybe, just maybe, when I do, that Shelley is onto something. Perhaps I do need to be writing that romance I once wanted to write. I mean, how in the world do I write a positively presented divorce survival guide when I really want to write a How to Destroy a Cowboy in Ten Days novel? There will be people in love reading my survival guide, people who might even be divorcing for the wrong reasons, like a tragedy that drove them apart. I’ve saved those marriages in the past—at least a few—but I like to believe they were worth saving. I can’t save a marriage or help people find a path to new ones like this.
That’s where my head is as I arrive at the main house, Jason’s house, and at Martha’s instruction let myself inside, and it’s a blessed relief upon entry. Air conditioning blasts my hot skin. The heat
outside is one thing I can say Dallas and Sweetwater have in common. Well that and men I can’t get along with. The instant I shut the door, stepping beyond the foyer to the living area, the scent of cigars and spice and man teases my nostrils. The scent reminds me of Jason and the memory of his smell all over my skin, sending me darting onward down the hall.
“Hey, you,” I say, joining Martha in the kitchen at the island, where she’s mixing ingredients for baked sugary treats. The smell delighting my nose and promising my hips that yes, they do indeed get to spread wider.
Martha perks up at the sight of me. “Hey, you!” she greets, waving her spoon my direction, which is good. A wave is not a throw, and a spoon has no spikes like a fork. Her grandson hasn’t convinced her that I’m the sinner from Dallas. “Your car all good now?” she asks.
“It is, thanks to Jason,” I say, setting my purse down on the far counter where keys and papers are kept, remembering the short drive over. The man had even cleaned my interior, and while I feel I need to thank him, I’m pretty sure he’s so done with me that any communication from me will be an intrusion. “How was Pilates?” I ask, ready to move on from the topic of Jason because I’m bursting to talk about him and what happened—I mean, why overreact like that?—but I don’t want to upset her, either.
“It was an excellent class,” she says. “Wait and see. You’re going to be shocked at what this small town has to offer.”
I’m pretty sure Jason already made that statement accurate, but I stick with, “I’m looking forward to next week.” And it’s true. I am. I don’t remember looking forward to much of anything recently, not until I came to Sweetwater. I step to the opposite side of the island to start baking. “What can I do? Isn’t tomorrow the big feast?”
“It is,” she says. “And it’s going to be so much easier with your help.”
“I didn’t even bring my computer. I’m all yours.”
“What about your book?” She hands me the bowl, giving me a concerned look. “Stir until I tell you to stop.”
I stir obediently, despite my lack of skill to follow most other orders. “It’s more a document than a book right now.”
The Truth About Cowboys Page 17