He almost had his life in order. He’d recovered financially and found himself again, buying a played-out piece of land out here in Wyoming and using his ag know-how to bring the range grasses back to life. Now he grazed almost a hundred cattle on the place—not ordinary cattle, but purebred Black Angus that produced more double-A prime steaks per pound than any other breed.
He was making a new start, getting back on his feet. He didn’t need Lacey Bradford to come along and knock them out from under him again.
Chapter 5
Lacey stared at the door to Chase’s office, trying to figure out what had just happened. It was hard to believe that the nicest guy she’d ever known had just called her a prostitute.
She’d always thought Chase liked her, maybe even loved her, though he’d never said anything. She’d just felt it in the way he’d looked at her. She used to catch him watching her back in high school. If he hadn’t been such a nice guy, it would have been creepy.
Well, he wasn’t a nice guy anymore. He was a total stranger. The change in his appearance underlined just how long it had been since they’d seen each other, and the change in his personality clinched it. There was no reason for him to remember her—though he obviously did.
Too bad those memories weren’t a little fonder.
Had she somehow led him on all those years ago? Had he thought they’d wind up together? She’d always tried to include him in conversations when he’d hovered around her like a fruit fly at the banana bowl. She’d always tried to be nice, even though she hadn’t been the least bit interested in harnessing him up with the string of aspiring boyfriends she herded through the halls of her high school every day.
Maybe she should have been.
She caught a quick glimpse of an alternate universe where she’d ended up with Chase instead of Trent. Looking at him now, it wasn’t hard to imagine. Trent hadn’t exactly made her hormones stand up and salute back when she’d said yes to his proposal or anytime after that. But he’d just about overwhelmed her with declarations of passion and with gifts. Lavish, expensive gifts that shut down the little voice inside her that told her he wasn’t what she wanted. Jewelry, clothes—even a car to replace the aging Mustang. When she’d said yes to his proposal, he’d presented her with an engagement ring that sported a diamond almost as big as the cubic zirconium she was wearing now.
And the promises: He’d send her to school. Help her get her license. Use his influence to get her some clients, give her a chance to prove she was more than a pretty face and a bright smile.
She’d always been the golden girl, the town sweetheart. Pretty and rich and perky and bright. Everyone had assumed she’d go on to college, be a success. She’d assumed it too—but when her father died, there was nothing left of her family but a mountain of debt.
Trent had stepped in and saved her. Or so she’d thought.
Maybe Chase was right.
Maybe she really had sold herself.
She scanned the office. The place didn’t look very prosperous, but it was tidy and clean. The floor was cracked brown linoleum, but it was buffed to a shine, and six white plastic patio chairs flanked each side of a low table in the corner. The table held an assortment of manly magazines—Field & Stream, Guns & Ammo, and an issue of Men’s Health featuring a shot of a buff model with a sexy toothpaste smile that reminded her of the man who’d just left the room. She wondered if he looked that good with his shirt off.
Well, she obviously wasn’t going to find out.
She stepped back out in the hot sun and surveyed the town from the trailer’s warped top step. A huge dog with a shaggy yellow coat slept in the dust of Main Street just outside Pookie’s Candles. He looked like he hadn’t moved for days. As Lacey watched, a panel van eased around the corner and carefully steered around him, tooting its horn. The dog lifted its head and watched the van disappear down the street, then sighed and settled its chin back onto its paws and closed its eyes.
This town had all the energy of a nursing home on an off-night for bingo.
She climbed into the car and pulled a haphazardly folded map from the center console. Spreading it on the steering wheel, she scanned her options.
If she drove south, she’d hit Cheyenne in about two hundred miles. But that was a cowboy town, and she’d just had all the cowboy she ever wanted to deal with. Denver would be a hundred miles further on, but it would be worth the extra travel to return to civilization.
Besides, Denver was a big city. She’d find a job in Denver.
She hauled her seat belt over her shoulder like she was strapping on a gun for battle, shoved the key in the ignition, and gave it a twist.
Pop. Bang!
The car had backfired before, but this time it sent up an impressive cloud of black oily smoke from the tailpipe. The engine died, and she cranked it again.
Bang!
The car gasped, coughed, and shuddered to life for a quaking, shivering instant before it died again.
“Shoot.” She unstrapped herself and pulled the hood release. Walking to the front of the car, she lifted the hood and propped it open. Then she stared into the engine and willed it to miraculously heal itself.
***
Chase lifted his head at the sound of a sharp report from the front of the trailer. Good. Krystal must have found somebody to test-drive that old Chevy pickup. The thing always started up like it was on its last legs, but once you got it going, it was a monster. Some people were leery of the fireworks, but Chase figured some amateur mechanic would want it for a project.
And if Krystal got somebody into the truck, they’d probably buy it. The woman could sell snow to Eskimos. He didn’t know how she did it.
The explosion sounded again, and he waited for the distinctive growl of the Chevy’s engine—but there was nothing. Hoisting himself out of his chair, he left the office and stepped outside. And was immediately confronted with Lacey’s shapely backside protruding from beneath the hood of her Mustang.
He’d already begun to regret his harsh words, and now he was really sorry. He’d completely underestimated her. It must have been the Mustang that backfired, and now she was going to fix it. He felt a strange stirring at the sight of her bending over the car. There was something about a confident, capable woman taking on a task like that that really turned him on.
It had nothing to do with the way her pants stretched over her ass.
He started to dodge back inside, but she turned and fixed her wide eyes on his face. She didn’t look confident and capable. She looked like she was going to cry.
“It won’t start,” she said. “It blew up, and now it won’t start.”
He walked slowly down the steps and peered under the Mustang’s lifted hood.
What a mess. A grimy, oily, burned-up, steaming mess. The engine was black and greasy where it should have been clean, and it sported a coat of baked-on, crumbling soot where the grease should have been.
“Somebody didn’t take very good care of this thing,” he said.
She nodded, her lips pressed together as if she didn’t dare speak for fear she’d cry. “That was me, I guess. I didn’t think I’d ever need it.”
Yeah, well, he was sensing a pattern here. She hadn’t thought she’d ever need him, either. The Mustang’s neglected engine looked like his heart: a black hole caked with soot and burned beyond recognition.
He glanced under the car and saw just what he’d expected: a spreading pool of oil glossing the hard-packed dirt of the lot.
“It doesn’t look good, but Jeb might be able to fix it.” He pointed toward the Quick Lube. “He’s got a couple of decent mechanics over there.”
“Okay.” She looked from the car to the garage across the alley, then back at Chase. “Could you help me push it?”
“Just leave it.” He shrugged. “Maybe they can get it started long enough to move it.”
“Okay. Sorry it’s—here. I mean, right in front of your place.” She looked at the beat-up muscle car as if sh
e was seeing it for the first time. “I guess it doesn’t look too good.”
He had to smile at the understatement, and she smiled back and met his eyes.
Damn. That was just what he’d sworn he wouldn’t do. Those green eyes hit his like high beams, and he was sure she could see the lingering traces of the long-running fantasies she’d starred in all these years. She stepped toward him, and for half a second, he thought about touching her, maybe kissing her, making all those fantasies come true. She’d let him, he was sure of it. She needed him.
“How long do you think it’ll take them to fix it?” she asked.
“Overnight,” he said. “At least overnight.”
He was inches away now, and incredibly, she was still smiling, those eyes inviting him closer. She’d have to stay, then. Stay the night in Grady. And from the way she was looking at him, she wouldn’t mind staying the night with him.
But it wouldn’t mean a thing to her, not like it would to him. She’d walk away when it was over, just like she had before. He took a quick step back, almost falling in his haste to break the tension simmering between them. He had a good life here—a regular, orderly life. Every day went just like he’d planned it. Nobody could take anything away from him—not his land, not his life, and definitely not his heart. He’d learned about loss from Lacey, and he was never going to go through that again.
“Look, Lacey, you have to go.” He licked his lips. “My—my fiancée will be back any minute.”
“Fiancée?” She looked startled.
He was startled too. He hadn’t meant to say that, but now that he’d ventured into a life of lies, he might as well go for it. He leaned on the railing and lied his heart out. “Yeah. She’s terrific, but she’s the jealous type. So you’d better go.”
“Chase, I’m already here,” said a high, breathy voice. He watched Krystal appear behind the Mustang like a prairie dog popping from its hole.
He almost smacked a hand to his forehead. Krystal must have been watching him, no doubt seeing Lacey as an attractive interloper and guarding her investment. Ever since he’d hired her, Krystal had spent all her time flaunting her curves and flashing him suggestive smiles. It was obvious that while he was interviewing her for the position of sales associate, she’d been interviewing him for the position of sugar daddy.
He’d apparently passed with flying colors. She’d quit her job at the Quick Lube, broken her engagement to the owner, and set her sights on Chase as clearly as if she’d closed one eye, swiveled, and pointed.
He wondered why the notion of a relationship with Krystal made him want to crawl under the counter and hide until she went away. The girl had the body of a Vegas showgirl and the libido of a lioness, licking her lips every time she looked at him. Sure, any relationship between them would be shallow and meaningless, and the woman was clearly only after him for his money—but all his relationships were shallow and meaningless. At least she understood money was all he had to give.
He sure as hell wasn’t about to give anybody his heart. He’d never gotten it back from Lacey Bradford.
“He’s not kidding. I am the jealous type.” Krystal narrowed her eyes at Lacey. “If you’re after Chase’s money, you’d better get out of here. It’s mine.” She widened her eyes as she realized what she’d said and had the decency to blush. “I mean, he’s mine. I’m his fiancée.” Her voice took on a wondering tone. “He said so.”
She turned and gave Chase a luminous smile and a perky Sarah Palin wink. “So what do you want for dinner tonight, honey pie?”
Chapter 6
Lacey watched Krystal hook one slender arm around Chase’s waist and rest her headful of big hair on his shoulder. Why hadn’t he told her in the first place that he was engaged? She’d have understood. Instead, he’d heaped scorn on her marriage and called her a slut.
Krystal gave Chase a squeeze and looked disappointed when he didn’t respond. “He has a little trouble expressing his emotions,” she said, simpering.
“Really?” Lacey felt her inner bitch rise. “He doesn’t have much trouble with anger, or jealousy, or sheer ornery meanness. I guess it’s just the complicated emotions he has trouble with. You know, like caring. Friendship. Charity. That kind of thing.”
Krystal looked at her like she didn’t know what those words meant either. It was a match made in heaven.
Lacey tossed her keys in the air and caught them. She didn’t know where she was going to go or how she was going to get there, but she’d figure it out. One thing was for sure: She wasn’t going to waste another ounce of energy on Chase Caldwell.
She opened the Mustang’s back door and Sinclair jumped out. Krystal let out a little scream and hopped backward, falling against Chase and making a production out of clinging to him to keep her balance.
“Oh! What is that?” She clutched at his arm.
“It’s a dog,” Lacey said. How would this woman react to Chase’s fixation with animals? Cowboy or not, she had no doubt he still kept a goat or two around the place. She was surprised he didn’t have one on a leash at the lot.
Opening the trunk, she hauled out her suitcase. There was a motel across the street. She could stay the night on the money she had left. Get the car fixed somehow. Move on.
Chase made a quick motion toward her as if to help, but Krystal kept a firm grip on his arm.
“I’ll be fine.” Lacey let the suitcase thump to the ground. “I don’t need your help.”
She hauled the suitcase across the street, bumping over the pitted blacktop. The Ranch House Motel wouldn’t have rated so much as half a star in the Michelin guide—but then, the town of Grady didn’t even rate a dot on the map. Like Chase’s trailer, the motel was a remnant of the sixties, with a structural simplicity that had probably once passed for clean, modern lines. Now, the peeling turquoise trim and dirt-brown siding just looked cheap.
Lacey looked up at the marquee sign with its crooked letters. Some of the words had blanks in them, like missing teeth.
“Look, Sinclair. PETS WE_COME,” she said. “That’s you. And they have a H_ATED POOL. Sounds about right.”
Sinclair cocked his head and studied her, his eyes serious beneath his beetled brows while she headed for the motel office. She wondered if Chase was watching from across the street, and she caught herself putting a little extra oomph in her walk. She carefully moderated the swing of her hips. She wasn’t here to seduce anybody. Especially not Mr. Cowboy Congeniality at the car lot.
The motel office was small and not terribly clean. A window-mounted air conditioner rattled in one corner, struggling to pump some air into the room but failing to dispel the odor of ancient indoor-outdoor carpeting and stale cigarette smoke. At a counter across from the door, an older man was reading a tattered Louis L’Amour paperback.
“King or two queens?” he asked without looking up.
For a minute she thought he was talking about a poker hand, but then she realized he was asking her what kind of bed she wanted.
“What’s cheaper?”
He glanced up at her, and she was reminded of Sinclair. Unkempt eyebrows almost obscured sharp dark eyes in an angular face, and his black hair looked like a Ronald Reagan toupee. His expression was skeptical and disapproving.
Dang, did this guy think she was a prostitute too?
“It’s just me and the dog,” she explained, gesturing toward the car. “Either kind of bed will do, but I guess two queens would be nice. We haven’t been together long, so I don’t want to sleep with him.”
He slid a sheet of paper across the counter and slashed an X next to each of three blank lines.
“Sign here and here. Make and model of car here. Credit card?”
She hesitated. She had a credit card—the first one she’d ever had in her own name. But the bills would go to the house, and someone might intercept the mail. Until she had time to change the billing address, she’d have to use her rapidly-dwindling store of cash.
“Cash.”
&nb
sp; His eyes narrowed and his lips thinned. Yep. He thought she was a prostitute.
“Works for me.” He watched silently as she scrawled her signature on the indicated spaces. The rate, $29.99, was noted at the top of the sheet, and she fished the requisite amount of cash out of her purse and slapped it on top of the signed paper.
The old man tossed down a key with an oversized plastic tag.
“Checkout’s at eleven,” he said. “No exceptions.”
“No kidding,” Lacey muttered as she turned away. So far, Grady had been less than welcoming. She wondered if all the men in town were grumpy or if it was something she alone inspired.
***
Cruising home, Chase willed himself to stop replaying the afternoon in his mind. Krystal had spent the entire day batting her lashes and performing an elaborate pantomime that was evidently intended to let him know how excited she was to be his phony fiancée. He’d taken pains to explain slowly and clearly that he’d only pretended they were engaged to get rid of Lacey and that he didn’t want a relationship any more than she did. Unfortunately, she took him at his word, and she apparently wanted a relationship badly enough for both of them.
At least he’d managed to evade the “what do you want for dinner” question. What he wanted for dinner was a Hungry Man meal and a beer.
One dinner. One beer. He and Krystal didn’t have enough in common to carry on a conversation at the office. He couldn’t imagine staring her down across the dinner table.
Besides, he had work to do.
The drive home was blessedly peaceful, and he looked forward to the sanctuary of the ranch. He’d take a little time to enjoy what he’d created out beyond the Grady city limits, do a little landscape appreciation. He’d grown up in Tennessee’s rich green grass, but he’d come to love the rugged, rocky landscape of his adopted home. He’d sit out on the back step and sip a beer, savoring the whisper of the wind in the grass and the distant lowing of his cattle.
Tall, Dark and Cowboy Page 4