Tall, Dark and Cowboy

by Joanne Kennedy

  “Wade, I don’t know where he is.”

  “Well, once he finds out you’re not home, he’ll come looking for you. And he’ll have to come straight to me.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying you need to come with me.” He leaned over to open the door, and she managed to shrug herself out of his grasp.

  “Wait.” Her mind scrambled for excuses. “I think I know where he is, but it’ll take me a couple days to get hold of him.”

  She had no idea where Trent was. None. But somehow, she had to get rid of Wade. He looked her in the eyes as if scanning her for lies, and she did her best to hold a steady gaze.

  He blinked his expressionless reptilian eyes. “Okay. But I like to clear my to-do list as fast as I can, so if you don’t get this done, I’ll be back on Saturday.”

  Saturday. Lacey’s stomach clenched again. That was two days away.

  “I’m not the only one looking for him, Lacey. I had a meeting with Bart Cross.” Bart was a lawyer and a legislator—Conway, Tennessee’s version of the powers that be. “Bart’s taking orders from the senator. Sue Parker and Dominic Huntley were there, too, and Steve Carpenter.”

  Wade had just listed half the Conway City Council and the chief of police. The implication was clear: She had no one to turn to.

  “They all have a lot to lose,” he said. “They all wanna find him.”

  “Sure.” She nodded and pasted on a smile. “Me too. I’ll call you when I get hold of him.”

  “You’d better.”

  He grabbed her biceps, his hands trembling as he pulled her close. She could smell his breath, a mixture of bad teeth, whiskey, and nacho cheese.

  “Don’t you try to fool me, Lacey. You run, I’ll find you. I have the law on my side.” He shook her, making her teeth rattle and her head bobble on her neck. “I’ll find you. I’ll use all the resources of the police department. I’ll report you missing, and I’ll track you down.” He shoved her away, flashing one last threatening look over his shoulder as she stumbled to catch her balance. “I’m not giving you until Saturday. I’ll be back tomorrow.”

  “Wh—what time?”

  “Bright and early.” He looked her up and down, and the way he smiled made her skin crawl. “Maybe I oughta just stay.”

  “No.”

  He narrowed his eyes and took a step toward her.

  “I have to, um, call some people. They’ll know if there’s someone else here.” She glanced from one window to another and lowered her voice to a whisper. “They might be watching now.”

  “They?” Wade looked a little uncertain.

  “Witness Protection.”

  Wade’s face flushed purple and his hands closed into fists. “That bastard. That son of a bitch. He’s going to ruin everything.”

  “I won’t let him, Wade.” She tried to sound soothing as she opened the door. “I’ll take care of it.”

  He pointed at her, then shook his finger in her face. “You’d better. Because if he talks, you pay. You pay. Be sure and tell him that. I’m not the only one involved in this.”

  As she shut the door behind him, she told herself she didn’t care who was involved—the city council, or the entire House of Representatives. Hell, she didn’t care if the president of the United States was involved.

  All she knew was that she didn’t want to spend one moment in a confined space with Wade.

  ***

  “Hello?”

  Lacey jerked out of her memories to see a very pissed-off cowboy watching her from behind the counter. When Trent was mad at her, he went cold. This guy’s anger was hot.

  Pretty much everything about him was hot. She could feel his gaze burning through her clothes. Maybe if she flirted more…

  Darn it, she always fell back on flirting. She wasn’t proud of that skill, but it was all she had. She’d married Trent right out of high school and hadn’t worked outside the confines of his real estate office a day in her life, unless you called party planning for a few fund-raisers a job. At the office, all she did was answer the phone. Trent never let her handle paperwork—and now she knew why.

  So her only experience was as prom queen, head cheerleader, and trophy wife. She could flirt, she could do splits, and she could sparkle.

  Doing splits didn’t seem appropriate right now, so flirting and sparkling was all she had left. She tilted her chin down and her eyes up, giving Chase her best Scarlett smile. “I need a place to stay where nobody can find me. Just until I can get my feet under me, find a job. Just for a while.”

  His gaze met hers for a moment, then flicked away. “Why me?”

  “You’re the only person I know who doesn’t live in Conway.”

  “So you don’t want me. You want Grady.” His eyes were hard again—hard and cold.

  “No, it’s not just that.” Her voice rose in pitch along with her desperation. “We were close, kind of, you know? And you were always a nice guy, and I need…”

  “A favor?” He thumped his palms on the counter and leaned forward.

  She’d forgotten what a big guy he was. He’d… filled out, and the muscles looked real—lean, not swollen like Wade’s. He must work out. He was resting on his hands, making the ropy muscles between his shoulders and neck stand out and his biceps bulge. His pecs were nice too, she could tell, even under that loose cotton shirt, because it didn’t just hang there, it…

  He scowled, and she snapped out of her lust-induced trance.

  “You came here to ask me for a favor?”

  This was not going well. She might as well go for broke and get it over with.

  “Well, not exactly. Not really.” She sucked in a bracing breath of air conditioning and set the babble machine loose again. “I just need a little help.” She glanced around the trailer. “I could work for you, maybe. Help out. And—and the car’s about to die on me, so please don’t say no.”

  He shot her a hard, cold look that hit her like a blow to the gut. Her breath stalled in her throat, and she put her fist to her suddenly constricted chest, pulling in a hard-won breath. She’d always been an expert at sugarcoating reality, but in the past month she’d had to face a lot of uncomfortable truths.

  And now she had to face the fact that the one man she’d figured she could count on obviously didn’t give a damn.

  Panic attack. She stared down at the spinning floor, trying to urge some oxygen to her brain, trying to control the fear that bound her chest like a boa constrictor, squeezing out breath and life and logic. She put one hand on the counter and concentrated on inhaling and exhaling, one breath at a time.

  You’re okay, she told herself. You’re going to be fine. Just fine.

  Chapter 4

  Chase scowled, stoking his anger and stifling all his other responses to Lacey Bradford. His first reaction had been the same as any man’s would have been. When a woman like Lacey walked into your office and presented you with a smile that knocked your socks off and damn near took your trousers too, you enjoyed the experience. Savored it, even. He’d spent a very stimulating thirty seconds taking in every detail of the new arrival’s appearance, from the sassy flip of her chestnut hair to the sweet pink piggies in her peep-toe shoes.

  Then he’d noticed those odd, distinctive eyes—eyes that were almost eerie in their intensity, with pale flecks like floating shards of ice breaking a clear sea of green. The cool hue warred with the warmth of her smile, her long black lashes intensifying the effect. Only one person in the world had eyes like that.

  Lacey. A quick surge of joy had lifted in his heart, sudden and erratic as a meadowlark flitting up from a fence post, but he’d downed it with one quick shot of realism, reminding himself just who this woman was. Who she’d chosen to be.

  She wasn’t the girl next door anymore. She wasn’t the kind, sweet girl who never let her beauty go to her head, who acted like she was just another teenaged girl and not a goddess who had fallen to earth to boost the testosterone levels of teenaged boys.r />
  She was Mrs. Trent Bradford, country club wife of Conway’s most successful—and dishonest—real estate developer.

  No, she isn’t. She got a divorce. And then she came to you for help.

  But what the hell could he do for her that her ex-husband couldn’t? Trent Bradford had the power to make and break lives, and he was more than willing to wield that power. His ex couldn’t possibly need help from a scruffy Tennessee farm boy turned cowboy who had to sell used trucks and tractors to supplement the income from his struggling ranch. A Tennessee farm boy without a Tennessee farm—thanks to Trent Bradford.

  Chase knew all about the scheme Lacey had described. It was the reason his father had lost his land.

  He remembered the day he left for basic training in Texas. His dad had told him some developer was after him to sell the place. The guy wanted to chop it into little bitty pieces and put in a trailer court.

  No way, his father had said. This place belonged to my grandfather, and when I’m gone, it’ll belong to you. He’d laughed and slapped Chase on the shoulder. Don’t worry, son, it’ll be here waiting for you when you get back.

  But Trent’s scheme was dizzyingly effective. While Chase was off serving his country, the government claimed eminent domain. They said they’d paid a fair price for the land, but there was no price that could pay for what Chase had lost. The farm had been his birthright. More importantly, it had been his father’s life.

  After the sale, his dad had tried to start over. He’d taken a job at the John Deere dealership in Conway, selling everything from combines to lawn tractors. But the shift from long, orderly days tilling crops and raising livestock to the frantic day-to-day desperation of commission sales took its toll. According to his sister, his dad had slowly faded, lapsing into a depression so gradually that she didn’t realize how bad it had gotten until it was too late.

  The supposedly essential turnpike that was going to cut through their old farm was canceled days before he died in the abandoned barn that was once the center of his life. One gunshot to the head. The cops said it was self-inflicted.

  Two weeks later, Trent Bradford bought the land for a song. Chase called the cops and begged them to look into his father’s death. They refused.

  He called one lawyer, then another. Both declared Trent’s machinations entirely legal. One told him it was the third time Trent had profited from eminent domain.

  Chase had never felt so powerless. Trent Bradford had taken his father’s life and his own future, and he couldn’t do a damn thing about it.

  Glancing outside, he expected to see a Mercedes or maybe a Beemer parked by the trailer. Instead, he saw a familiar red 1985 Mustang with chipped paint on the hood and a crooked headlight that made the car look like it had a headache.

  “That’s your old car.”

  Lacey nodded.

  “Why are you driving that? Didn’t you have a Mercedes or something?”

  “A Beemer.”

  She licked her lips and the quick flick of her tongue sent another spasm of desire into the danger zone. He stepped closer to the counter to hide the sudden effect it had on his Wranglers.

  “But I figured Wade might be looking for it and the Mustang has been in the garage for years. So I thought it would be safer.”

  He felt sorry for her for a second, but then she tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. As she lifted her hand, a gold ring bearing a stone the size of a quail egg flashed, sending shards of reflected light dancing over the cheap paneling behind the lobby’s white resin chairs. That ring must have cost dang near as much as his father’s funeral. And she probably had three more just like it.

  If she’d asked for less, he might have helped her. If she’d wanted her car fixed, for example, he’d have been glad to crawl under her chassis and twist a few screws.

  He swallowed. How could the notion of fixing her car so quickly turn his thoughts to sex? That first moment when she’d walked in the door had sent pleasure rippling through him like wind through a field of wheat. He hadn’t been able to take his eyes off that lush body, still toned and athletic as it had been in high school. She’d led the cheers at every football game, leaping high, spinning and twirling, her compact, athletic body so taut and strong, he couldn’t take his eyes off her. He wondered if she could still do a split.

  He looked her up and down, his eyes chasing the curves that led from her breasts to her buttocks. She needed a place to stay, right? Maybe he should take her home. Help her out.

  Help himself.

  Then he looked at that ring and remembered all he’d lost—and all she’d gained.

  For the past—what was it? Seven years? Eight?—she’d been living off the profits of the wheeling and dealing that had cost his family so much. Eating bonbons, probably, and lunching at the club. Had the theft of his father’s land paid to get those pretty, perfect toes painted? Had it helped her keep her hair perfectly cut, her body toned and firm?

  “Sorry,” he said. “You came to the wrong guy.”

  She looked wounded. “But Chase, we were friends. I thought…”

  “Well, you thought wrong.”

  She blinked up at him, and he felt something inside him soften. Damn. He needed to end this. Scare her away so she’d never come back. One more blink of those sea-green eyes and he’d tumble into the same bottomless abyss of heartbreak he’d fallen into when she got married. He’d do something stupid, like help her. Or fall in love with her.

  He’d done both a long time ago. Graduation night, she’d celebrated a little too hard by having a lot too much to drink. He’d found her backed against the wall in an empty bedroom with Wade breathing hot whiskey breath in her face and pawing at her skirt.

  Chase had rescued her and taken her home, but that had been the end of his heroics. He wasn’t sure any man could have fought the temptation of having her alone in the car in the dark, her eyes bright with promise, her breath sweet with the scent of sloe gin.

  Still, he never would have kissed her if she hadn’t seemed to want it as much as he did. She’d hesitated when he pulled the car to a stop outside her father’s house, glanced at him from under her eyelashes, and smiled that smile. He was pretty sure they’d shared equal responsibility for their one heart-stopping, smoldering kiss.

  But they obviously hadn’t shared an equal assessment of what the kiss meant.

  For him, it was a turning point. He’d graduated from high school just three days earlier, and with that kiss he thought he’d graduated from dreams to reality. Lacey was his. He was stunned, surprised, gobsmacked to hell and back, but he was certain that kiss had sealed them together forever. He’d driven home planning their next date. Their engagement. Their wedding.

  She’d gone inside, fallen into bed, and apparently forgotten all about it. He wondered if she remembered even now.

  Probably not. The next day, the announcement of her engagement to Trent Bradford had appeared in the paper. She hadn’t just been saying good-bye to high school that night; she’d been kissing her old life good-bye. That’s what she’d been doing with him too—kissing him good-bye.

  To her, that kiss had been the end of something—but to him, it was a new beginning, an introduction to adulthood’s inevitable cycle of hope and heartbreak. Years later, when he lost the farm, he’d been better able to deal with the pain because he’d already had to deal with disaster.

  “Please, Chase.”

  Please. How could he say no to that?

  Easy. He chased away the memory of that kiss and called up an image that had haunted him for years: the image of his father’s face, gray and sightless in his coffin.

  He knew he should be over his family tragedy. It had been six years. How long could you hang on to that kind of anger before it turned you bitter?

  But how could you get over the discovery that everything you had was gone? The realization that the future you’d taken for granted had disappeared? And even if you could recover from that, how could you forget the day your fa
ther died? Or the way he died, so despondent that he took his own life?

  You couldn’t get over that. And even if you could, you shouldn’t. Not unless you were heartless.

  Despite the grim memories, he couldn’t stop his eyes from flicking involuntarily from her pleading eyes to her tempting breasts. Why was it so hard to say no to her? If she flashed him that come-hither look one more time, he was going to break down and give her anything she wanted.

  He focused carefully on her left ear—though even that made him want to put his finger out and trace the perfect pink spiral that reminded him of the curved heart of a sea shell.

  “Forget it, Lacey.” He barely recognized his own voice, bitter and hard. “I’m not some tenth grade loser, panting after your perky little cheerleader ass anymore.” He shifted his gaze to meet her eyes. “Go sell yourself to somebody else.”

  Lurching out from behind the counter, he strode into his office and slammed the door. Throwing himself into his rolling desk chair, he let it slide backward and bang the wall. His heart was thumping like a Memphis blues band, and all the blood in his body seemed to have flowed south. What he’d said was true. He wasn’t a tenth grader panting after her perky little ass anymore.

  He was a grown man panting after her ass.

  He couldn’t believe he’d been so cruel. It had been a reflex—pure self-defense, because seeing Lacey had brought back the fantasy that had haunted him since high school. He’d had a sudden urge to step up to her and cup his hands under that firm, rounded ass, lift her up onto the counter, and flip up her little cheerleader skirt to reveal the panties that flashed the crowd every time she did a high kick. Then he’d…

  Then he’d get back to reality and finish his paperwork. Lacey wasn’t wearing her cheerleader uniform; she was dressed like a typical lady who lunched in those stupid pants women wore that didn’t even reach their ankles. And she was what—almost thirty now? She probably couldn’t even do a high kick any more.

  Hey, he should check.

  No, he shouldn’t. He should hide in the office until she left. If he saw her again, he’d break down and help her. If he helped her, he’d be involved with her—and by extension, he’d be involved with Trent Bradford. He’d lost to the guy twice now—once when Lacey had married the guy, and once when he’d lost the farm. He wasn’t about to let it happen again. Slumping forward, he rested his elbows on his knees and raked his fingers through his hair.