The Charmer in Chaps

by Julia London

  Rafe reappeared, sans can, and stood over her, studying her very closely, like a lab specimen.

  “Stop looking at me like that. I’m hideous. I could die,” she said, mortified.

  “You’re not hideous,” he said, as if she still had a few steps to go before she reached certifiably hideous. “You just look a little beat up. I think the dark circles under your eyes—”

  “Okay,” she said, weakly waving her hand at him. “Don’t tell me.”

  He patted her shoulder. “Look on the bright side—you’re probably going to live.”

  “Do I have a choice?” she muttered.

  “No.”

  “What’s the dark side?”

  “The dark side is you won’t believe you’re going to live until tomorrow.”

  Great.

  “Maybe you should have a little hair of the dog that bit you. You might feel better.”

  “Nooo,” Hallie moaned, and squeezed her eyes shut as she swallowed down a wave of nausea. “Don’t even say it.”

  “How about food? Do you think you could keep something down?”

  “Stop talking,” she moaned. She rolled over onto her back and squinted up at him. “What happened last night?”

  Rafe smiled. Very slowly and very sexily. His smile used to drive her friends crazy with lust. “I don’t even know where to begin.”

  “Must have been epic,” she muttered. No wonder her head was pounding.

  “Pretty spectacular,” Rafe agreed.

  Hallie groaned and rolled onto her side, away from him. She wasn’t much of a drinker, so she would lay the blame for however she might have humiliated herself squarely at the feet of her very recent ex-fiancé, Christopher. Everything was his fault. Her terrible, piteous mood was his fault. Her five-pound weight gain was definitely his fault. She wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if even the Israeli-Palestinian conflict could be traced back to him.

  She could clearly remember rambling around the twenty-thousand square feet of the main house at Three Rivers Ranch, where she, a grown woman of thirty years, was living with her mother (God help her), and her grandmother (adding salt to the wound since 1936). Her older brother, Nick, and her twin, Luca, came by a couple of times a week to check on things, but all of them, all of them, had been out last night and had left Hallie alone in abject peril, because without any good reality TV to distract her, she had only her thoughts to keep her company.

  Anyone who knew her knew that being alone with her thoughts was a train wreck waiting to happen. Well, she’d pumped that locomotive right into a ditch.

  Oh, but she’d worked herself into a good lather over Chris. She could even remember coming up with the brilliant idea that she ought to drive to Houston and confront him and her supposed bridesmaid, Dani, whom she’d last seen naked beneath Chris. Hallie could even remember convincing her weakly responsible self that she wasn’t that drunk, that she could make the three-hour drive to Houston, no problemo.

  She could vaguely remember putting on her reception dress with the dumb idea that Chris ought to see what he would be missing—her looking exquisite on her wedding day, to be precise, but not in her actual wedding dress, because he’d lost that privilege when he pile drove his body into Dani’s. But she hadn’t been able to fix her hair, and this was not the sort of dress one could don without assistance. In fact, she could feel the cool air the ceiling fan kept pushing against her bare back.

  Who really understood the power of tequila until one had empty shot glasses up to her elbow? She couldn’t remember much of anything after squeezing herself into this dress. Mostly just snatches of Rafe now that she thought about it.

  “Want me to get Frederica?” Rafe asked.

  Frederica had been cooking the meals at Three Rivers Ranch since Hallie was a little girl. “She’s probably not here. Mom cut her to three days a week.”

  “You’re kidding,” Rafe said flatly.

  That’s what everyone said—Frederica was like family. But when Hallie’s father had died so unexpectedly earlier in the year, things had changed. The Princes were having to do a lot for themselves around the ranch, which none of them were really accustomed to doing. “I’m not kidding,” Hallie said. She wrapped her arms around a pillow and lay on her side. “Did you really stay with me all night?” she asked, feeling immeasurably pathetic.

  “You insisted,” he said. “But now that I have assured myself you are breathing, I’ll just tiptoe on out of here.” He made a move toward the door.

  “No, wait,” she said. “Don’t go yet.”

  Rafe hesitated.

  “Please, Rafe.”

  He glanced at her sidelong, clearly debating. She didn’t blame him—babysitting hungover debutantes was probably not his cup of tea. But Hallie didn’t want to be alone again. Not until she could at least drag herself to the bathroom under her own power. “At least tell me how we ended up in my room.”

  “You want to hear the truth, huh?” he said, smiling a little. “That might take a minute.”

  “What else am I going to do while I die my slow and agonizing death?”

  He chuckled softly. “Okay,” he said, and turned back around, easing himself onto the foot of the bed. “Shall I start with the cows?”

  “Great,” Hallie moaned. “It’s even worse than I feared. I don’t remember any cows.”

  Rafe gave her foot a squeeze. “Last night, Mr. Creedy’s cows got out.”

  “Again?” Hallie asked, and was immediately struck with the realization that her world had gone from high society parties to knowing how often the Creedy cows got out. Oh, how the mighty had fallen.

  “Yep. About a dozen of them sauntered through a hole in the fence, I presume because they thought the eating would be better on the other side of the road. But they must have taken a moment to contemplate just how small they were in the vast cow universe, because they were bunched up on the road and wouldn’t move.”

  In spite of herself, Hallie smiled. “Can’t blame them—it is a pretty big universe, you have to admit. And besides, I don’t know why Mr. Creedy won’t fix that fence, because those cows keep getting out.”

  “Mrs. Bachman wondered the same thing,” he said, and crossed one booted foot over his knee. Hallie realized he hadn’t even taken off his boots through the night. Rafe had to be the most respectful man she’d ever known.

  “By all accounts, she was pretty upset,” he said. “Those cows were blocking her path to bridge club.”

  “Oh no. Mrs. Bachman does not miss bridge club.”

  “No, she does not. She was fit to be tied and called the new sheriff. What’s his name?”

  “Sam Richards.”

  “That’s right. Well, Sheriff Richards called Dad. He said he’d drive a patrol car down here to take care of it, but they were all tied up at the Broken Wheel.”

  The Broken Wheel was an old style honky-tonk on the highway to San Antonio. They had live music most nights, a washers pit, a pool hall, and a dance hall where they still sprinkled sawdust for all the scooting boots that went round it. “Why?” Hallie asked. “What happened?”

  Rafe leaned forward and said, “Now, this is all secondhand, as told by Sheriff Richards to my dad, who, I have to tell you, doesn’t always appreciate the nuance of a well-told tale. But the sheriff said they had their hands full putting down a brawl.”

  “A brawl?” Hallie asked, perking up. “That sounds juicy. What started it?”

  “If I had to hazard a guess, I’d say it was probably a woman. Saturday night brawls at the Broken Wheel are usually about a woman.”

  Hallie smiled a little. “Spoken like someone with personal experience.”

  “I am man enough to admit that I may or may not have gotten tangled up by a woman on occasion,” he said with a wink.

  She would love to hear that story. In high school, Hall
ie and her friends would openly swoon as they lay by the pool while Rafe walked around with a weed eater in his hand. He would roll his eyes at them and tell them to get a job. Kara Maplethorpe was absolutely tongue-tied whenever she saw him in a sweaty, threadbare T-shirt and jeans. She definitely would have thrown down for a chance with Rafe. “I haven’t been to the Broken Wheel in ages,” Hallie said through a yawn.

  “It’s a good thing you didn’t choose last night to return,” Rafe said.

  He was right. “So far you’ve told me about a brawl, some contemplative cows, and a mad Mrs. Bachman,” she said, lifting three fingers as she counted them off. “But what has that got to do with me?”

  “Nothing,” Rafe said. “But that’s why I happened to be close by last night. Dad and I came to saddle up a couple of horses and rode out to move the cows and patch the fence. When I brought the horses back, there weren’t any lights on in the house, and it looked like no one was home.”

  “Just me and the blues,” Hallie muttered.

  “You and a blue streak, you mean,” Rafe said. “When I first heard it, I thought it had to be Miss Dolly. I mean, we all know your grandmother can get a little salty.”

  Hallie snorted. “Tell me about it.”

  “But Miss Dolly doesn’t generally cry. And whoever was cussing was sobbing.”

  “Okay, thank you, that’s all I need to hear,” Hallie said, mortified, and turned her face into the pillow. “Just shoot me, Rafe. Find a gun and take me out back and shoot me.”

  “Nah,” he said, and shifted on the bed. “You’re too pretty to shoot. Anyway, I went to have a look,” he continued, “and as I got closer, who should I see but Hallie Prince hobbling out to the garage like she had a peg leg.”

  “I wasn’t hobbling,” Hallie said. Give her a little dignity in this tale, please.

  But Rafe leaned over and picked something up off the floor. He held up one of her wedding shoes. The heel was broken. Broken? Oh, right—she’d slammed the sparkly silver shoe against a brick wall.

  “That wasn’t all,” Rafe said.

  “How did I know that? Let me guess—you also noticed I was quite inebriated.”

  “Well, sure. I could smell that from thirty steps away,” he said with a wink. “But what I thought was a little strange was that you were wearing your wedding dress. And as far as I knew, you weren’t getting married last night.”

  She wasn’t getting married at all. The spread in Bridal Guide magazine, the feature and registry on TheKnot.com, three hundred guests followed by a reception at the Skyroom in San Antonio, and another reception the next day at the Las Velas in Houston, where Chris was from. “It’s not my wedding dress,” she said. “It’s one of my reception dresses.”

  “That’s not the first time you’ve said that, and honestly, I have no idea what that means. All I know is that it looked to me like a wedding dress, and I thought it was a strange fashion choice. That’s when things got interesting.”

  He was enjoying this, she could tell. Drawing out the torture. Hallie moaned, certain she didn’t want to hear the rest.

  “Now, I didn’t believe you could actually pour yourself into the driver’s seat of your car, especially after you practically nose-dived into the hood trying to walk around it. But you always surprise me, Hallie. Somehow, you managed to put yourself in the driver’s seat. So I walked up and stood in front of the car, because obviously, I wasn’t going to let you drive.”

  “You realize it’s a miracle I even saw you and didn’t run right over you,” she said. “You risked your life and all your limbs.”

  Rafe laughed. “Oh, you saw me, Hal. You were so pissed I wouldn’t move that you laid on the horn and sent everything from cattle to baby rabbits running across Texas. And then you got out and Frankensteined your way over to me and started shouting something about a whore and a wedding cake.”

  She groaned with mortification. “I don’t remember any of that. Please tell me you’re kidding,” she begged him.

  He arched a brow. “You got really mad when I said you were going to have to walk if you were that determined to get to Houston. That’s when you went all King Kong on me and started smashing buildings and hurling cars.”

  “You’re exaggerating!”

  “You threw your broken shoe at me.”

  “Rafe! I am so sorry!”

  “You were wide by a mile.” He smiled.

  She let out a sigh of relief.

  “But then you took a swing at me, and you had some velocity behind it.” He sounded almost impressed.

  “Ohmigod,” she muttered. “I had no idea I was one of those girls who fights when she’s drunk.”

  Rafe laughed. “For what it’s worth, you’re a horrible fighter. Your swing was so wild that it knocked you off balance, and you crashed into me, and then grabbed on to cry some more.”

  “Do me a favor and open the window, will you? I’m going through it,” she said, and buried her face in the pillow. It was sort of impossible to believe . . . and yet entirely possible to believe that she could make such an ass of herself. She didn’t know who she was these days. “Rafe . . . I am so, so sorry,” she murmured tearfully, and lifted her face. “I’m a horrible drinker. I mean I don’t drink. Until I do, and apparently, I am about as gifted at that as anything else.”

  “It’s okay, Hal,” he said with a kind smile, and caressed her arm. “You’re entitled to let loose once in a while. Hey . . . I haven’t talked to you in a few weeks. I didn’t know about your, ah . . . wedding,” he said carefully.

  She glanced at him sidelong. “Did I tell you?”

  “You told me. With some very vivid imagery.” He smiled and squeezed her arm affectionately. “I’m sorry, Hallie. That really sucks.”

  Hallie closed her eyes. He had no idea. “Thanks,” she whispered. “Then what happened? How’d we end up in my room?”

  “Let’s see . . . I suggested maybe you ought to go to bed, and you decided that was a good idea, because the fight had gone out of you. Unfortunately, no one was home, and I couldn’t trust you not to stab yourself in the eye, so I hung out for a little bit.”

  “You mean you saved me. Again.”

  “I don’t mean that at all. I did what any friend would do. Especially if their friend was drunk out of her mind stumbling around in a wedding dress.”

  “Reception dress. But you know what I mean, Rafe. You’re always there for me. Remember the time you pulled me out the bathroom window at Cassandra Ferguson’s graduation party?”

  He looked puzzled.

  “You don’t remember? I was sixteen and had that ridiculous crush on Jonathan Peavey.”

  “Oh, that time,” Rafe said, nodding. He rearranged himself so that he was sitting beside her now, propped against the headboard of her bed, one leg stretched long, one foot on the floor. “I hate to say I told you so—”

  “Really? You hate to say it? Because you said it like a thousand times as I recall—”

  “Well, come on, Hallie—everyone knew he was gay. That is, everyone but you.”

  “It’s not like he wore a shirt that said I’m gay. I made the biggest fool of myself that night,” Hallie said. “There was no way I could have walked through that party with my head up after I tried to kiss him in front of everyone and he almost fainted with terror. You saved me from even more humiliation, Rafe. You were there for me.”

  “Hallie. You were halfway out the bathroom window when I found you. I just helped you land on your feet instead of your head.”

  “And what about that time in middle school when Melissa Rodriguez took her parents’ car without permission and we were going to go on a joyride? You told her if she didn’t get out of here, you’d jujitsu her butt back home. I was so mad at you.”

  “I don’t believe it was jujitsu,” he said. “I think I threatened tae-kwan-do. She was thirteen. So
were you. You had no business being in that car.”

  “Well, I know that now,” Hallie said. “The point is, you saved me then, too, because Melissa ended up backing that car into a light pole. If I’d been in that car, my mother would have killed me.”

  “Okay, I helped you out a couple of times. It’s no big thing.”

  “It is.” She eased herself up to sit beside him, propped against her headboard. She glanced down at her reception dress. “You were also there for me when I found out my dad died, remember?”

  Rafe took her hand in his. “I definitely remember,” he said softly.

  The day her dad dropped dead, Hallie had been in Houston. Nick called her and told her he was on his way to pick her up. All he would say was that something had happened to Dad. He didn’t have to say more—Hallie just knew. She’d tried to get hold of Chris, but he was in surgery, could not be reached. For some reason, Hallie had called Rafe’s cell. He’d been in Chicago, but he’d answered immediately, and he’d stayed on the phone with her until she could collect herself and gather her things.

  After a long moment, he let go of her hand and rubbed his palms on his jeans. “So it’s really over with you and the doc, huh?”

  An image of Chris’s handsome face danced in Hallie’s mind. His pale blue eyes. His golden hair, streaked by the sun after days spent on the open waters of the Gulf of Mexico in his enormous boat. His naked body on top of Dani’s naked body, who, if memory served, was still wearing her stupid stilettos. “Oh yeah, it’s over,” she said, willing the image away. “He’s tried to call, but for me, it’s dead and buried. Beaten and burned. Hacked and—”

  “I’m truly sorry, Hallie.”

  Her eyes welled. “Thanks, Rafe.” It had been almost a month. She felt a lump of hardness in the pit of her stomach when she thought of Chris. She wasn’t even sure if she missed him anymore. But she was beginning to despair that she would never get over his betrayal. Over the utter humiliation of it. The terrible, soul-consuming feeling of realizing you’re a fool. Chris had destroyed the last little bit of faith in herself that she’d had. Hallie attempted to choke back a sob, but it sounded more like a honk.