Looking for Trouble

by Becky McGraw

  She went around the truck and got Angel out of the car seat, and then went through the double doors at the front of the hospital and directly to the information desk. Once she found out where Ray was, she made her way to the elevator and up to the third floor. The nurse at the desk pointed her to his room. Standing outside the door, Jess took a deep breath, then walked inside.

  Ray was dressed and sitting in a chair by the window, his face a big purple mess, and his arm in a sling. His eyebrows raised and he grimaced, when he saw her. “Well, well…if it isn’t the woman of the hour…your boyfriend still in jail? Guess so, or you wouldn’t be here, would you?” Ray asked with a nasty chuckle.

  “I came to talk to you Ray, and see if we could work this out. You shouldn’t have come to the bar, and you know it…shouldn’t have pushed his buttons,” she said in a hard tone.

  “It’s a free country, darlin’…and I had every right to be there, you invited me there,” he said in a oily tone.

  “Travis didn’t know it was you they were sending…neither did I,” she told him bouncing Angel on her hip when she started fussing.

  “Who’s brat?” he asked curiously.

  “She’s not a brat, she’s my daughter,” Jess told him angrily. “What’s it gonna take for you to leave me the hell alone, Ray? To leave Wade alone?”

  “His kid?” Ray asked, his eyes glittering strangely.

  “That’s none of your business…I’m not here to get reacquainted. I just want to know what it’s going to take to get you to back off. Travis called your company and told them we’re not interested in them, if we have to deal with you.”

  “Well, he can call them right back and tell them you’re ready to sign, and I’m your representative, cause that is what it’s going to take, sugar. That and the rights to those songs you sang at the bar the other night.”

  Jess sucked in a sharp breath as her stomach churned at the thought. “Not happening, Ray…we’re through. I don’t want to have anything to do with you.”

  “So you say…but here you are trying to get me to work something out with you, so you can save your boyfriend…I think you need to reevaluate your approach, Jess,” he told her then leaned back in his chair and tried to smile smugly, then flinched.

  Jess swallowed down the bile that surged up in her throat, because he was right. She was here to get him to agree to drop the charges against Wade. “Okay, if you drop the charges, I’ll sign the contract, but you’re not getting the rights to the songs.”

  “If you do both, I won’t sue that fucker for everything he has, either, and I could you know. I was just there doing my job, and he attacked me…hurt me pretty badly. I even had a concussion that could cause me problems later, and this arm is gonna need a lot of physical therapy, and who knows if it’ll ever be right again, not to mention the dental surgery I’m going to need to fix my mouth…”

  “All right…get the damned paperwork drawn up, but I want it in writing that you’re not going to sue him, and I’m having an attorney look it over, so it better be tight. Call and have them release him…now,” she told him.

  “I’m not stupid, sugar…you sign the papers, and I’ll get him released.”

  Jess huffed out a breath then told him, “If he’s not out by tomorrow, the deal is off, and I’ll sell those songs and get him out myself, and sue you for the money you stole from me…I have the books.”

  “Those books don’t have shit in them, I know, because I did them…so that dog won’t hunt,” he told her with an evil grin, and then flinched again.

  “I’ll hire an accountant and an attorney to get the proof, so don’t mess with me, Ray. I’m not the naive teenager I was when I let you do that to me,” she told him and pinned him with her eyes.

  “You’re still pretty stupid…you got yourself knocked up, and hooked up with a broken down rodeo rider,” he said then threw his head back and laughed.

  How the hell did he know that Wade was a rodeo rider, if he hadn’t purposely set out to cause all this trouble? He shouldn’t have even known she was with Wade, or who he was. Evidently, Ray had been doing some research on them, if he knew that. She didn’t trust this man as far as she could throw him, and this was why.

  He was sneaky, and was just plain evil…he did things behind her back to corner her, make her do what he wanted her to do. He’d been trying to get her back for three years, since she’d kicked him to the curb, and now he had…at least partially. She would never let this asshole touch her again, at least she had control over that.

  “How did you know Wade was a bronc rider?” she asked him and watched his face for a reaction, even though the swelling and bruising made it hard to read him.

  “I know a lot of things about Wade Roberts, and you, darlin’. I do my homework. I’m good at my job, remember?”

  Jess gasped and fear poured through her, but she held it back and told him through gritted teeth, “I remember you’re a sneaky asshole, that’s what I remember. You did all this on purpose, didn’t you?”

  “I didn’t do a damned thing, your boyfriend is the one who beat me up…now you are gonna have to pay for it, aren’t you? Too bad you hooked up with a hot head,” he said then laughed again.

  “Better than hooking up with a sneaky bastard like you. God, how the hell could I have been so blind for so long?” Jess shook her head, then Angel started whining, and sucking her fist, and she put her on her shoulder, then gave him a final glare. “I’m not blind now, Ray, my eyes are wide open…so you better not try to screw me, or you’re gonna be sorry,” she pointed her finger at him and told him.

  “You’ll never be as smart as me, sugar…so you better be on your toes,” he said smugly.

  Jess growled in frustration, then turned toward the door and said over her shoulder, “You better be on your toes this time, Ray…and get that damned paperwork done. If he’s not out by tomorrow morning, the deal is off,” then she walked through the door and to the elevator.

  ***

  When Cole came to Wade’s cell with keys in his hand, surprise, then hope welled up inside of him. He got up stiffly off the cot where he’d slept for the last four nights, and walked to the door of the cell. “What’s up?”

  “You’re outta here jailbird,” Cole told him then opened the door.

  “How’s that?” Wade asked him suspiciously. He hadn’t paid the astronomical bail the judge had set for him, because of his past scrapes with the law…mostly bar fights, because he’d had one too many beers, and was bored, and some cowboy decided to try him, because he was a rodeo rider. After a while, he figured out wearing that gold belt buckle in public wasn’t such a good idea, and that it had been the cause of most of those fights. Evidently, some guys took that as a challenge. He hadn’t had another bar fight, since he stopped wearing it, until now.

  “I don’t know,” Cole said shaking his head, “I can’t figure it out either…Ray Turner called this morning and dropped the charges…said it was all a misunderstanding.”

  Fear, then anger pushed up inside of Wade and he groaned, “Jess…”

  God, he hoped she hadn’t done something stupid. He told her not to sell the songs, so it sounded like she’d done something worse, instead. That had to be it, because Wade knew the bastard wouldn’t have done this without a reason.

  “What?” Cole asked as he opened the cell door to let him out.

  “Jess had to have done something for that bastard to drop the charges…and it scares the hell out of me what that might be,” Wade told him, then walked in front of him to the hall door.

  “You need to stay away from him, Wade…whatever she did. I don’t want to have to throw you in here again,” Cole said sternly.

  “We’ll see…” Wade told him, then huffed out a frustrated sigh. He walked through the barred door to the desk and picked up his stuff that was waiting for him in a plastic bag, then walked out the front door.

  He saw his truck parked at the back of the lot, and Jess behind the wheel. She smiled wid
ely when she saw him, and waved. Wade didn’t wave back, because he wasn’t feeling very congenial right now. He wanted answers, and the beautiful blond in his truck was going to give them to him.

  Pulling the handle, he hopped up into the passenger seat, then slammed the door and threw the plastic bag on the floor. Jess leaned over to kiss him and he held up his hands and told her, “I need a shower to get rid of this jail funk.”

  “I don’t give a damn,” she said then shoved his hands to the side to kiss him, then hug his neck.

  Wade felt her tears wet the side of his face, and pushed her back from him. “Stop the waterworks, darlin’…tell me what the hell you did to get me out of there,” he told her gruffly, pinning her teary green eyes with his.

  She pulled back from him and cranked the truck, then put it in gear. “We’ll talk about that later. Let’s go home,” she said then gave him what he recognized as a forced smile.

  Angel cooed from the back seat, and he looked back there and smiled at her. Next to her mama, she was the best thing he’d seen in four days. “Hey baby girl, did you miss daddy?”

  “Damned right she did, almost as much as I did,” Jess told him then gave him a wobbly smile. “I’m so glad you’re out, baby…we need you.”

  “I just want to know what you did to get me with you…it’s probably not something I’m going to be happy about,” Wade growled and his stomach lurched when he saw Jess’s face turn white, and her lips pinch. Nope, he wasn’t going to like this at all, he could see that.

  They drove in silence, and when she pulled the truck up in front of the Double B and he told her, “I would carry Angel, but I’m filthy…”

  “I’ve got her, sugar…you just go shower, so you’ll feel better. We’ll be in there in a minute.”

  “Thanks…” Wade said grimly, then headed for the bunkhouse.

  The hot steam of the shower felt like heaven, and he inhaled deeply, hoping to clear out the smell of the jail from his nasal passage too. Wade never wanted to have that experience again…it was definitely a deterrent to him getting in another fight. As badly as that asshole had deserved a whooping, it wasn’t worth it, because he had a bad feeling that Jess had paid for it in the end.

  He scrubbed up quickly, then wrapped a towel around him and walked down the hall to his bedroom. Dressing quickly, he headed up front to get those answers he wanted, but didn’t really want to hear, from Jess. When he walked into the kitchen, she had breakfast on the table, and he knew that was just another delay tactic on her part. It wasn’t going to work. “Okay, tell me what you did,” he said sitting down at the table and piling a plate up with eggs and grits, then grabbing a couple of pieces of toast.

  Jess leaned over the table and set a cup of coffee down by his plate, but she didn’t answer him. She just walked back to the stove and pulled the skillet off and took it to the sink and started washing it.

  The eggs stuck in Wade’s throat, as her silence lengthened, so he took a sip of the scalding coffee, then grated, “Now, Jess—tell me what the fuck you did,” then put his fork down on his plate.

  He saw a tremor pass through her, and she wiped her hands on a dish towel, then slowly turned around to face him. “Don’t get pissed…” she told him and her face got pale again.

  “You know I’m going to be pissed—just fucking tell me!” he shouted and Angel who was in her car seat on the end of the long table started whimpering, so he lowered his voice and demanded in a fierce whisper, “Tell me!”

  “I went to see Ray at the hospital…and we worked out a deal,” she hedged.

  Wade clenched his fists on the table, and said in a low fierce tone, “What kind of deal?”

  “I signed a two-year contract with the label, and he’s going to represent me…”

  “Holy shit!” he shouted then scraped the bench on the floor to stand up and slam his fists on the table. “What else, Jess—what else?” He knew there was more, because he could see it in her face.

  She gnawed on her lip and twisted her hands in the dish towel, then tears filled her eyes and she told him, “I gave him, well the company, the rights to the new songs…”

  Wade ran around the table and grabbed her shoulders, then groaned, “I told you not to sell those songs! And why the hell would you do business with that moron when he screwed you so bad before?”

  Her chin dropped to her chest and she said in a shaky voice, “I had to, Wade…it was the only way he’d drop the charges.”

  “I’d rather have stayed in jail! Where the hell was Travis in all this?” he asked incredulously.

  “Travis doesn’t know yet…” she admitted softly, then added, “He’s gonna be mad at me too, but I don’t care.”

  “Mad doesn’t begin to cover it, sugar. You sold yourself and your songs to that bastard,” Wade said in disgust, then took his hands off her and shoved a hand through his hair.

  “It’s only two years, Wade…I can handle it for two years,” she said with desperation in her tone, then added, “I did it for five years, two more won’t kill me.”

  “But it’ll kill me, Jess. I don’t want you anywhere near that bastard. How much is that contract worth?”

  “Including the rights, probably a hundred fifty thousand dollars or so,” she said and shook her head. “It depends on how the songs do…”

  “You know those songs are golden…it could be millions you gave up.”

  “You’re worth it, darlin’…I don’t care about the money,” she told him, then put her hand on his shoulder, “All I care about is you, Wade…and Angel.”

  “I’ve got figure out some way to buy out that contract, before those songs are recorded,” he said frantically. Wade knew that once she recorded them, he’d never be able to get her out of it. He needed to talk to a lawyer too, one who handled recording artists, to see if there was some loophole in the contract, or some other way to get her out of it.

  “No! You don’t have to do that, Wade…just let it be,” she yelled then grabbed his arm. “Let’s just build our house, and move on…we’ll get past this, darlin’.”

  Anger at her naivety moved through him and he looked down into her pleading eyes and told her, “You really think it’s gonna stop there, Jess? He’s going to keep finding ways to control you…did you even have someone look over that contract before you signed it?”

  Her face flushed and she hesitated then told him, “There wasn’t time…I read it though, and didn’t see anything wrong.”

  “Where’d you get your law degree, Jess? Why do you think they have attorneys, sugar? You never, never sign a contract without getting legal advice…especially one like that.”

  Her green eyes narrowed, and her face got redder, then she pushed away from him and said snippily, “I’m not stupid, Wade…everyone thinks I am, but I’m not. I did what I did, because I had to, and it’s done…I’m the one that has to live with it. You could at least say thank you.”

  Wade took a step toward her then told her, “You’re wrong there, Jess…Angel and I have to live with it too.” He waved a hand toward Angel in the car seat, and added, “We have to sit back and watch you being taken advantage of, and see money that should go to you and Angel go to a sneaky asshole, instead.”

  “I’m done explaining…I’m going to bathe and change, Angel,” she huffed then picked up the car seat and walked to the bathroom, and went inside, locking the door behind her.

  Wade shook his head then went back and finished his cold breakfast and coffee, before going to the sofa and plopping down to think. He glanced at the coffee table and saw his new issue of ProRodeo sitting there, and picked it to thumb through it. The same faces he’d competed against nine months ago taunted him from the pages, with stories of their glory rides. Those stories used to be about him, and it was really odd to live vicariously through the other professional cowboys on the pages of that magazine.