“Buster,” he called in a hushed tone. “Where are you, boy? Come here.” He clapped his hands but the dog didn’t come. In the quiet house, he thought he heard a bark. Following the quiet yips, he traced Buster to Paige’s bedroom. He opened the door far enough for the dog to get out but not so far that he’d be able to see Paige. If she was awake, he didn’t want to see the censure in her eyes. If she was asleep, he was afraid he’d stay watching her like some pervert. Instead, he collected the dog that wasn’t his from the bedroom of the woman who could never be his and headed to his own bed.
Chapter Seven
The next couple of weeks, Paige and Cash maintained a polite distance. For breakfast, Paige would gulp down a cup of coffee while chewing on a breakfast bar. Then she’d rush out of the house for work. Cash would have a couple of cups of coffee while he scanned the newspaper. Of course they’d say good morning, and at bedtime, good night, but in between, the conversation was as impersonal as two strangers sharing adjoining seats on a plane.
Cash continued to work on the exterior of the house, finding more boards that time and weather had eaten away. When he began painting the exterior, the wood sucked up the paint like water poured on sand. The sun-exposed side required three coats of white while the others seemed to be satisfied after two.
The first week of hard labor had left him sore and stiff, his leg letting him know every night how displeased it was. However, by the end of the second week, his pain was manageable with a couple of aspirin. After his shower every evening, he was too tired to do much more than eat whatever Paige put on the table and then crash upstairs in front of his television.
Three weeks after their devastating kiss, Cash was tired of staying home and tired of Paige’s guarded facade around him. He put up his tools early and took his shower, ready to suggest dinner out when Paige returned. Besides, it was the Friday night of Memorial Day weekend. She’d been doing all the cooking, mostly because his cooking wasn’t edible. She deserved a nice night out. Plus, dinner out with Paige was the perfect way to start a long holiday weekend.
At close to five, he heard her car pull up the drive. He met her at the front door with his friendliest smile, the one that always won the ladies.
“Hey. How about dinner at the Longstar Grill? Or we can go to that new Italian place if you want. I owe you about dozen meals.”
His heart skittered when she smiled. “That’s sounds wonderful, Cash, but I already have plans for tonight.”
His smile faltered. “You do? Dinner plans?”
“I’m sorry. If I’d known, I’d have told Marc no.”
“Marc?”
“Marc Singer. A deputy with the sheriff’s department. Lydia introduced us. Anyway, we’ve had lunch a couple of times, and when he dropped by today, he asked if I wanted to try Amore’s, which is so strange since I was telling you the other night about it. So I said yes.” She checked her watch. “I need to get moving if I want to get a shower and freshen up before he gets here.” She took a couple of steps and then turned back to him. “Do you want me to put something on for dinner for you before I leave?”
“No. Don’t worry about me.” He tried for a flippant, disaffected tone, not sure if he achieved it or not. “Great about your date. We’ll do dinner out another time.”
“Well.” She drew the word out. “If you’re sure.” She took another couple of steps and stopped. “Are you sure you don’t mind if I go out?”
Of course he minded. The oh-so-perfect deputy. Didn’t anyone in his blasted family realize that Paige deserved more than a guy who might get shot down on the job? Besides, every redneck deputy Cash knew was at least fifty pounds overweight and had the personality of jackasses, braying and bragging about everything. And now that he thought about it, Caroline hadn’t said anything about the guy being attractive, only that he was nice.
Ha! Nice! The kiss of death for a guy.
“Of course I don’t mind,” he said with a straight face. “Why would I care if my roomie has a date? You have fun.”
She shrugged. “Okay.” She rounded the corner and headed down the short hall to her room.
Cash dropped onto the steps and Buster bounded up to him as though saying, “Yay. Let’s play,” and dropped a tennis ball beside Cash’s feet. He lobbed the ball through the living room and into the dining room. The puppy, his paws too big for his body, flung himself off the step after the ball, his uncoordinated lope bringing a grin to Cash’s face.
When was the last time he’d tried to find a home for Buster? The gangly puppy trotted back to him with the bright-yellow ball clutched in his mouth.
“Drop it.”
Buster released the ball immediately. He might be a little clumsy and his ears long enough to drag the floor, but Buster was smart. He learned commands after only a couple of tries. No matter how long Cash left Buster outside, the dog never wandered off. It was as if he’d decided he’d found his home. And now that he’d spent some time thinking about it, it’d been at least a couple of weeks since he’d offered Buster to someone, and even that offer had been half-hearted at best.
He and Buster headed back upstairs. The last thing he wanted to see was Paige all made up for another guy, even if he was probably fifty pounds overweight. He dropped into a leather recliner and turned on the local news.
The craving for a beer haunted him in the worst way. It’d been weeks since he’d had a drink, and what had that gotten him? Paige hadn’t noticed. His family probably still considered him a drunk and a total loser. Olivia and Mitch’s opinions of him couldn’t get much lower. They’d even given up on inviting him over for dinner,
The rumble of a diesel truck in the drive had him pushing down the footrest and heading for the stairs. He might not want to see Paige, but he did want to get an eye on the guy picking her up. He’d make sure this deputy understood that Paige was special and he’d better treat her right.
Cash flung open the front door after a single knock, hoping Marc Singer was fat and balding with rotten teeth and bad breath. Fuck. He was as tall as Cash with black hair cut very short. When he smiled, his teeth damn near blinded Cash. What was this guy? A toothpaste model on the side?
“Hi.” Marc shoved his hand forward. “I’m Marc Singer. You must be Cash Montgomery.”
Cash took his hand in a bruising grip. “I am.” He didn’t try to make his voice less brusque. “Paige tells me you are talking her to Amore’s. That’s nice. What time will you be back?”
“Okay, Dad. Stop it.” Paige came up behind him with a laugh. “Mom said I could stay out until midnight now that I’m twenty-one.”
Marc chuckled.
Paige stepped around Cash. “Hi, Marc. I guess you’ve met my guard dog, Cash.”
Marc nodded. “I did. I’ve heard so much about him from Lydia that I feel like I already know him.” He looked at Cash. “Quite an impressive career. Don’t know how you got on the backs of those crazy bulls. I know I could never do it.”
Now Cash was getting really mad. Not only was the man obviously attractive, he was nice. And his breath was minty fresh when he spoke.
Damn it.
“You just get on and hang on,” Cash replied. “Just takes some balls. You have some balls, right?”
“Well, we’d better go,” Paige said, effectively putting a stop to Cash’s testosterone-induced posturing.
“You’re right,” Marc said. “Nice to meet you, Cash.” He stepped back to allow Paige through the door.
“Don’t wait up,” she whispered to Cash.
Fuck.
He was at a loss of how to spend his evening now that his original plan had just left in a shiny black truck. Absentmindedly, he tossed the tennis ball from hand to hand as he debated his options. He could go to Leo’s, but Leo was such an old woman these days. He’d be on the phone to Cash’s brothers before Cash could get half a beer down. There was
that other hole-in-the-wall joint, Maxine’s. But sitting and drinking all evening didn’t hold much appeal these days.
Buster barked and Cash realized the poor dog had been watching the tennis ball for the past few minutes, just waiting for Cash to play.
“Sorry, boy.” Cash arced the ball toward the dining room and the puppy tore out. Balls. He’d told the deputy that riding a bull took balls, and it did. Somewhere, Cash’s balls had shriveled up with his nerve. He needed to go to see Olivia and Mitch. Hell, he needed to talk to Mitch about his investment, and yet he didn’t have enough balls to drive onto their property. Fuck that.
He pulled his phone from his pocket and scrolled through the directory until he found the number for Kickin’ Bull Ranch. His sister answered.
“Hey, sis. What’s going on out there? I thought maybe I could take you up on one of your dinner invitations.”
“Sorry, little bro. My darling husband is taking me to Amore’s for dinner. That’s that new Italian place.”
“Yes. I’m aware.”
“I’ve been waiting to go since its opening a couple of weeks ago. Took this long for us to get reservations, so as much as I’d love to have you out, afraid it’ll have to be another night.”
Amore’s? What the….? Was the place giving away meals tonight?
“No problem. I just found my evening free and I’ve been promising to come out so I thought maybe our nights might match up. No big deal. Ask Mitch if we can get together about the business next week”
“I’m sure he can, but I’ll let him know to call you.”
“Have a nice meal.”
Wasn’t his night getting better and better? He considered calling his parents, but the thought of his mother’s sincere but smothering love was more than he could take this evening.
Travis and Caroline had only been home for a month with the twins, so he didn’t imagine they’d be interested in him dropping by. He called Jason’s cell phone. The background noise when his brother answered suggested he was in a car.
“Hey,” Cash said. “What’s going on?”
“Not much. Lydia and I are headed out for dinner.”
“Any place good?”
“Amore’s. We’re meeting some people there.”
“Oh. Well, I’ll let you go.”
“No, that’s okay. What’d you need?”
“Nothing.” He paused. “Mitch and Olivia are headed there. So are Paige and Marc Singer.”
The pregnant pause on his brother’s end was deafening. “Yeah. I know.”
“So you all meeting there for dinner?”
Jason cleared his throat. “Yeah.”
“Travis and Caroline too?”
“Well…it’s just that…” He cleared his throat again. “It’s just that Lydia thought it might be nice if all of us got together.”
“Us?”
“You know. A couples sort of thing.”
“So Paige and this guy are a couple?”
“I don’t know, Cash. I just go where Lydia tells me. Listen, I need to run. We’re at the restaurant. I’ll give you a shout tomorrow, okay? Glad you called. Let’s get together soon.”
During his phone calls, Cash had paced from the living room, into the dining room, out the side door in the dining room and onto the trellis-covered deck at the side of the house. After Jason clicked off, Cash stood holding his phone not quite sure what he was feeling inside. Frustrated? Yep. Mad? Yep. Confused that his brothers and sister hadn’t included him in the dinner plans? Most definitely.
He got that this was a couples thing, but he could have found a date if they’d given him advance notice. If his sister-in-law hadn’t been such an activist in matching his roommate up with the new deputy, he could have brought Paige. She’d fit nicely with his family.
Shit. She was fitting nicely into his family. He was the one on the outside. Hell of a thing when an outsider meshed better with his family than he did.
After a dinner of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, he went upstairs to find something on television to watch. Even Ruby and Butch had deserted him to play tag with each other.
He was a single shoe in a closet of pairs.
He popped the back of his recliner into sitting when the slam of a truck door echoed in the quiet night. Rolling his gaze to the left, he saw that it was late, almost midnight. That was a long damn dinner. Whispering Springs was a small community, certainly not large enough to support much night life other than bars. Granted, there were nights when Leo’s had live music, but since he hadn’t been there in over a month, he had no idea if that’s where they might have been. Plus, he couldn’t imagine Olivia and Caroline staying away from the children until midnight.
How should he play this? Stay up here? Let the cop get his goodnight kiss at the door? Oh crap. What if she brought him back to her bed? He didn’t think he could take that. He might have to kill the bastard.
He bided his time, listening for the front door to open. If the sonofabitch came in with her, he could make the situation uncomfortable enough that maybe he’d leave.
The squeak in the hinge of the front door—the one he’d been meaning to oil—alerted him that someone was entering. Maybe oiling that squeak could wait a while longer.
As much as he didn’t want to, as much as he hated he couldn’t control his actions, he looked over the railing into the living room. Paige was alone. She was bending over to pet Buster and Ruby, giving him an excellent view of her ass.
“Have fun?”
She startled and looked up. A smile slowly crawled across her mouth. “I did. The food was wonderful.”
Her cherry-red lipstick was slightly smeared off her upper lip on the right side. An unwanted ping of jealousy rattled his gut.
He gritted his teeth, but the question got out anyway. “Does he kiss good?”
Her eyes opened wide in surprise.
“Come on up. I’d love to hear all about it.” His knuckles were white where he’d wrapped his fingers around the railing.
“It’s late.” She looked away and stood. “I should get some—”
“If you won’t come up, I’ll come down.”
She made the mistake of looking up toward Cash again. He wasn’t at the railing. Her heart leapt at the vision of him hurrying down the stairs. Dressed in a pair of sweat pants that’d been cut off at the knees and a torn work-out shirt, he appeared bigger than life, tougher than beef jerky. His bare feet slapped on the polished wood of each step. She suddenly had a flashback to the night of her eighteenth birthday. The warrior charging across a battlefield. She needed to move, to run to her bedroom and slam the door, but she couldn’t. Her feet were glued to the floor. A battle of mind versus heart. Tonight, her heart was stronger.
He stopped in front of her. His body heat didn’t. It swept forward, wrapped around her, swaddled her in warmth. Pulled by all that power and energy, she swayed. He caught her face between the palms of his hands, wrapping his fingers around her head and into her hair.
“Did he kiss you like this?” he said in a breathy whisper against her lips. And then he took her mouth in a savage kiss. All lips and teeth, touching, grinding, nibbling.
She parted her lips, welcomed his tongue inside, greeted him with a long, hard suck on his tongue. The room swam and she leaned into him for stability. Her entire world shrank down to him, his mouth, his tongue. Filling her. Making her feel alive. Desirable. No longer alone.
He jerked his mouth away, trailed kisses along her jaw and up to her ear. The steamy breath from his lips trickled into her ear, igniting a firestorm of lust in her gut. Her knees softened. She grabbed his waist to hold her upright.
At least, that’s what she meant to do. Instead, when her fingers touched the hot flesh peeking between his T-shirt and shorts, she couldn’t stop herself from pulling him snuggly against her.
He attacked her mouth again with a deep, wet kiss. A deep-throated groan echoed in the room amid the sounds of wet kisses and moans. Her groan? His? She didn’t know. What she did know was he was as affected by her as she by him, as evidenced by the long, hard cock pressed into her stomach. She kicked off her shoe and ran her heel up his bare leg to his thigh, his rough leg hair scraping the bottom of her foot. Then she wrapped her leg around his until she could press her throbbing sex against his thigh.
Gliding his hand down her neck, he trailed his fingers to the swell of her breasts. He used the tips of his fingers to tease her flesh at the vee of her buttoned blouse.
Her breath became erratic, choppy and short. Her insides liquefied and flowed to her core, making her panties wet with desire. She slid her hands under his shirt, felt the ridges of muscles, traced the ribs up until she met his crinkly chest hair. Then she felt the tough skin of multiple scars.
He stilled and pulled away. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that.” Stepping back, his gaze froze on her face. “I…” He turned away and started for the stairs.
“Wait. Cash. I don’t understand. Why did you stop?”
He shook his head and continued up the stairs. She heard his bedroom door slam.
Sexually frustrated, overly exhausted and too tense to sleep, Paige went to the kitchen and spent the next two hours baking cookies. Finally, at close to three in the morning, she shut herself away in her bedroom and dropped into a restless sleep.
Blinding rays of bright sun streaming through her window gave Paige an abrupt and rude wakening. Rolling away, she shielded her eyes with the extra pillow on her bed. She lay there listening to the air conditioner drone on until it shut off. The sudden quiet sharpened her hearing for any movement in the house. Was Cash still here? What would he say about last night? What would she say? She didn’t know. Heck, she didn’t know what she felt or how she should feel.
She groaned and pulled the pillow tight over her head. Why couldn’t life be simpler? Why couldn’t she have fallen madly in lust with Marc last night?
It wasn’t easy, but she pulled herself far enough out of her funk to get dressed. She found a note on the kitchen table that said nothing beyond Be back late. After wadding it into a tight ball, she shot it for a three-pointer at the trash can. Of course she missed and didn’t that just about sum up her life.
Texas Twist (Texas Montgomery Mavericks) Page 11